Three is a Magic Number
by bluebinder
Summary: Laura Carson is thrown into the demigod world and is enlisted to go on a quest when the sorceress Circe attempts to overthrow Hecate. With the help of two other demigods, they will attempt to overcome three different trials and defeat Circe, but as their deadline approaches, it is unsure if they will save Hecate.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, this is bluebinder. This is just something I've been working on for the past few months and I thought someone might enjoy it. I'll post around once a week or so and if you have feedback or suggestions, just comment. Thanks!**

I laid on my pile of blankets and stared up at garage ceiling, thinking about everything and nothing at once. Staring at the clock, I saw that only minutes had passed since I last looked at 1:05 am. Rolling over for what seemed like the millionth time, I sighed and slowly closed my eyes. I let my thoughts and imagination wander, hoping it would help me relax, but just as I felt myself drifting off, a loud crash brought me back to my senses. I sat up quickly and scanned the area while groping for my trusty flashlight and praying that the opossum hadn't returned from the week before.

I shined the beam of light around frantically, attempting to find the culprit of the intrusion and discovered something completely unexpected; a boy was standing in front of the door that led into the house. He looked irritated, around my age, and was of average height, but skinny. He wore black jeans, a skull shirt under a thick aviator's jacket, and an odd-looking skull ring.

Adrenaline coursed through my body and fear overtook rational thought in the face of danger. He could potentially be a thief or a murderer or any other terrifying criminal in between. Once I realized I couldn't flee because he was in front of the door, my fight response took over and anger replaced fear. 'How dare he' I thought to myself. 'He's in my space and privacy.' I grabbed the closest blunt object I could find, which happened to be an old lamp they had intended to throw out, and held it up, ready to defend myself; ready to win at any cost.

"What are you doing in here," I hissed angrily, trying not to be loud enough to wake my foster family. I knew I probably wouldn't win in a fight since he was larger and more menacing, but I was willing to put up the fight of my life and the lamp helped raise my confidence, if only a little.

"What are _you_ doing in here," he yell-whispered back, exasperated. "This is the garage and it's like one in the morning!"

My anger was slipping away as reality set in and I realized this boy could hurt me in ways I probably couldn't even imagine. "What do you want" I asked, accidentally letting some fear slip into my voice. I cleared my throat. "And how'd you get in here? I'm not going to let you steal anything if that's what you're after." I tried to sound confident, but he knew and I knew that I was faking it. I came closer with my lamp, now using it like a fencing sword, trying to back him up. Looking irritated, he held up his hands, indicating a truce, but I knew better. He quickly glanced out of the garage window and his face suddenly turned serious.

"Look, I'm not here to steal anything but we need to go, and soon." I must have been making an "are-you-crazy" kind of face because he added "and yes, I'm for real. My name's Nico and I'm going to take you somewhere safe. It's called Camp Half-Blood."

" _Safe_ ," I interjected, giving an exasperated laugh. "From what? A thief breaks into my garage and tells me I'll be safe if I go with him? Yeah right. If you don't leave right now, I'll go inside and tell my…," I pause, "parents you're here."

"Your name's Laura, right? Laura Carson?" Nico began sounding desperate and rushing his words, like he was in a hurry. "You're thirteen, and you live with your foster parents. You've run away from four other homes and been kicked out of three schools."

I was shocked and frightened at the same time. This complete stranger knew things about me that I had only told a handful of people before. My voice began to break with fear and anger

"How do you know all of that? Have you been following me or something? Or did you get to one of my old friends?" Tears started streaming down my face and I gripped the lamp harder. Terror filled my core and I was starting to become hopeless that anyone was coming to my rescue. "What do you want?" I whispered.

"Have any weird or odd things ever happened that you couldn't explain?" he continued, ignoring my many questions. "Like maybe monsters or teachers that have tried to attack you? And that's when you get kicked out of school, right?" I nodded, but I still didn't know how he knew any of these things. I was also extremely surprised that someone seemed to believe my accusations for once. "Do you remember the Greek and Roman gods you learned about in school?" I nodded, not knowing why I was entertaining his conversation. "I know it sounds crazy but they're real and you're just like me and everyone else at this camp. We're called demigods, you have powers, one of your parents is a god, and I think I know who it is. But we need to leave. Now that you know about it, monsters can target you ten times better now. Plus, something was already coming." He looked around, seeming anxious and like he was ready to leave.

I was about to say something like "you're insane" or "holy shit, get out of my house" when I noticed a car alarm going off down the street. We stood completely still for a moment or two, both noticing it and looking at each other, anticipating something; anything. Nothing happened at first but then I heard a noise outside.

The garage door was violently torn from the house with the earsplitting sound of metal on metal. I covered my ears and closed my eyes and when I looked back, in its place stood a giant, and I mean a literal giant. He was at least eight feet tall with terrifyingly sharp teeth and wore basketball shorts. I had no idea what this thing was but I did know one thing; that I was scared out of my mind.

As I stood frozen in fear, Nico unsheathed an all-black sword that I had failed to notice before now. All I had to protect me against this giant was a puny little goth kid and a lamp. I was doomed.

"What _is_ that thing" I asked Nico as I scooted closer to him. If I had to go with someone, it'd be him.

"It's a Laistrygonain, a man-eating giant." His voice was cold but the winter air now coming into the garage was colder. I shivered and tried to cover my jacket-less limbs.

The monster laughed and the noise reverberated within my bones, shaking my core. "You think you can defeat me with that little sword? We Laistrygonains can't be destroyed so easily. And I am not here for you, boy, but if you stand in my way, prepare yourself for death."

Reaching into the yard, the monster uprooted an ancient oak tree like it was a little daisy and was about to throw it on the garage, crushing us, but Nico grabbed my arm at the last second, pulling me outside. The tree came down with a deafening crash and the entire garage was demolished instantly. The ringing in my ears made me dizzy, but I didn't have time to recover before the Laistrygonain grabbed a street light from its post, sending sparks flying. He swung it like a baseball bat and instincts I didn't know I had took over. Nico and I dropped to the ground, narrowly missing the swing. While we were getting up, the monster, who was a lot faster than I had anticipated for him being that big, snatched me up by the midriff and squeezed and shook me. Stars danced in my vision and I tried to keep from blacking out from fear and pain. I dropped my lamp and the giant laughed. His breath smelled like rotting fish and gummy bears, which made me nauseous. He brought me closer to his face and stared right at me.

"I've been looking for you for days, Laura Carson," he growled, "and now I may bring you to my master to be rewarded."

A strange feeling began in my core and raced its way up to my fingertips, leaving behind an icy cold trail. A moment later, a chicken bone flew into my hand and to say that I was thoroughly confused would be an understatement, but I had no time to think. I took the bone and jammed it into one of the giant's eyes. He dropped me and howled in pain. I fell seven feet to the ground and attempted to break my fall with my hands. When my right hand met the ground, I heard a sickening snap that reminded me of breaking a twig, but unfortunately, it was my wrist breaking. I howled in pain and rolled over on my side, but I noticed how quickly the monster was recovering so I rose to my feet and scrambled over to Nico. I was shaky and out of breath and my wrist seared with pain, but other than that, I was okay.

The boy held out his hand, palm down to the ground and for a few seconds, nothing happened and I began to wonder why he was wasting time. After a moment, the yard began to rumble like an earthquake and a giant rip opened in my foster parent's front yard. Skeletons clamored out of the hole and advanced on the Laistrygonain with swords and spears from all different time periods. He put up a good fight, kicking and throwing things at them, but he was soon outnumbered. He fell and the undead hauled him towards the crevice. The sounds of his threats, pleas, and terror filled my ears as he was dragged into the trench. The rip closed, leaving behind no evidence; like nothing had even happened. I didn't notice until then that tears were streaming down my face.

We stood in silence, waiting for something to break the tension and police sirens in the distance did the trick. I saw neighbors beginning to look out of their windows to investigate the commotion and I started to get worried, so I looked at Nico, expecting him to have an answer or explanation or plan, but he just looked exhausted. Sweat lined his forehead even though it was a late December night in New York and he looked like he was going to be sick and pass out any second.

"We should go. Two demigods of the big three will only attract more monsters." He was panting with every breath.

"Where are we going to go?" I asked, exasperated and irritated. "We can't drive and the police will be looking for us since the yard is a complete wreck and the garage is destroyed." My panic was setting in. Everyone was going to blame this on me since I was the problem foster child. I couldn't let that happen. I began to look around for an escape route but Nico placed his hand on my shoulder, leaning heavily on me. I winced as I moved my broken wrist to help him. I used my other hand instead.

"We're not running. We're going to shadow travel, but I can't take us far. I need to rest."

"'Shadow travel?' What's that? And where are we going? I can't just leave my family." I started to ramble, thinking of everything bad that could happen including ending up in juvie, getting killed, and being left with my foster family and a broken house.

"You'll have to trust me, but we _have_ to leave. You're one of us now."


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey I stopped in a really awkward point last chapter because I didn't want to make one** ** _really_** **long chapter so this is a continuation of chapter one. If you have any feedback, questions, comments, or concerns, just leave a review. Thanks!**

"You'll have to trust me, but we _have_ to leave. You're one of us now."

"Can I at least find my shoes and a coat first?" I asked meekly. The winter air was frigid and I was starting to lose feeling in my extremities with only a tee shirt and shorts on.

Nico took off his shoes and his aviator's jacket and handed them to me. "I'll be fine" he said after I hesitated. "We're going somewhere warm."

I took the coat and shoes and put them on as quickly as I could. Nico seemed to notice my pain for the first time.

"Are you okay?" he asked, a little more lucidity coming through.

"No," I replied instinctively. I had learned in my old foster home not to complain about injuries or illnesses because dealing with the pain was better than dealing with the foster parents.

Nico quickly grabbed my right wrist and I wailed in pain, making him drop my hand. I cradled it as tears stung my eyes and his face hardened to stone.

"We're leaving" he said coldly. I heard him mumble about forgetting something called ambrosia, but I didn't know what it was.

I wondered what I had said to make him mad but before I could ask or react in any way, he grabbed my good wrist and I felt us slipping into the shadows. Darkness and cold washed over me and voices called out, pleading for help. A blood curdling scream filled my ears right as we came out. We landed near a fire that had been built. It was starting to go out but could easily be brought back with a little work. As I was looking at the surroundings, I heard a thump, so I turned around and saw Nico on the ground. He looked half dead.

"Nico! What are you doing? What's wrong?" I stammered.

He murmured something along the lines of "I need sleep" and then passed out. I could hear light snoring, indicating that he had miraculously already fallen asleep. I looked around, not having any idea where we were or what to do. I decided to survey my situation. We were in the middle of the woods with a fire that was going out, a boy was passed out from exhaustion, I had almost no survival experience, monsters could be after us at that exact moment, and I had broken my dominant hand's wrist. The outcome looked grim, but I decided that building up the fire was priority one. I went around and gathered as much firewood as I could and during my chore, I found a thick blanket that I assumed Nico had packed and I draped it over him to keep the cold at bay since I had his jacket and shoes.

Once the fire was blazing again, I sat down and attempted to accept what I had learned over the past hour and a half. I was a demigod, one of my parents was a god, I apparently could summon chicken bones, and I was stuck in the middle of the woods with the possibility that monsters could be hunting me. I tried to be surprised, but I honestly wasn't. through the years, I had learned to become numb to change and let it roll off my back without a second thought. I believed instead of brooding and worrying about what I couldn't change, you should go with the flow.

I laid down and tried to sleep, but I was too cold and my wrist hurt too much. I should've been exhausted but anxiety gnawed at the back of my mind. I sat up and stared at the fire, letting my mind wander and I remembered something Nico had said. "You have powers" I replayed in my head. I thought about when I summoned a bone earlier and guessed that that was one.

Ever since I was little, I somehow kind of knew where things were buried. It freaked the other kids out when I'd tell them they were standing over a dead rabbit or cat, so I kept it to myself. But now that I knew I could at least summon bones, I was curious to see what I could do.

I decided to attempt something familiar, so I tried to sense any bones that were around and I found that I could tell that there was a dead deer about 100 feet to my left. All of its bones were there and it had died a long time ago; weeks, maybe even months ago. I held out my hand, mimicking what I had done earlier and imagined one of its bones coming to me, thinking that that's how that worked. The same icy trail started up my fingertips and I could feel it start to move. As it got closer, I could sense the death on it and after a moment, the bone shot into my hand like before. I examined it for a second and then tossed it into the woods, seeing as it held no value. Though I was slightly disappointed one of my powers was centered around death, I was excited that I had any at all. It seemed that Nico had been telling the truth about at least one thing.

I had no idea what other powers demigods had so I tried to think of potential ones but came up blank. My creativity had greatly diminished over the years. The only other power I knew of was the shadow traveling and raising of the dead that Nico did. Both seemed terribly out of reach for my ability but I wanted to try something and shadow traveling seemed safer than summoning skeletons. I was scared and felt completely dumb for trying, but at this point, there was nothing to lose. I was alone with no one to miss me, so why shouldn't I try something that could be potentially dangerous?

I didn't know how traveling in the shadows happened but I had always imagined super powers worked by you imagining what you wanted to happen and it would, so I tried that. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and thought about my body melting into the darkness surrounding me. I imagined myself sitting on the other side of the fire and when I felt iciness washing over me and the screams of what I assumed was the dead, I knew it was working. When I opened my eyes, I found myself right where I wanted to be: on the other side of the fire.

"Woah" I whispered to myself.

I smiled, elated that I had figured out something on my own. I decided I'd try again and thought of myself going under and reappearing next to Nico's sleeping figure. A split-second later, I was sitting next to the goth boy. I went back and forth for about ten minutes, letting the cold and screams wash over me each time. I was freezing, but the adrenaline pumping through my system didn't notice.

After I felt like I had gotten the hang of shadow traveling, I settled on the decision to push the boundaries. I was nervous but quickly reminded myself that I had literally nothing to lose.

I stood up, taking care of my wrist, and thought of the only place I wanted to visit in that moment. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I closed my eyes and thought about where I wanted to go. I felt the side effects of traveling by shadows take hold and when it was over, I opened my eyes.

I was standing on the edge of the woods by my foster family's home. Red, blue, and white flashing lights of different speeds blinded me and I realized what I saw. Police, ambulances, and firetrucks lined the street. Men and women in uniforms sifted through the rubble that used to be where I slept, looking for me. My foster parents were standing outside looking frustrated and inconvenienced while their two children yawned and continuously wiped sleep from their eyes. I heard my foster dad yell "How long is this going to take? Its 2:30 in the morning for fucks sake." He was always a yeller. I watched as the baffled police officer talk to him a moment more before walking off. I realized it at the same moment as that officer did that my family didn't care about me. They weren't worried about whether I was dead or alive or screaming in pain from being crushed by a fallen building. All they cared about was their sleep and how much the rebuilding of the garage was going to cost.

I could feel the tears streaming down my face and I tried to wipe them away because I knew crying was not going to do me any good, but the tears wouldn't stop. I had seen enough. I closed my eyes and thought of me standing beside Nico and the warmth of the fire. In the blink of an eye, I was there. I looked around and noticed he had rolled over but nothing else had changed since I had left. I built the fire back up a little and laid down next to it, trying to melt away the cold of the shadows. I don't know when, but at some time in the night I fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey this is Bluebinder again. Happy summer for those of you who are done with school! I haven't been writing much since finals and I have orientation at my new job on Monday, but I'm going to try to write more this week. And also, when I tried to copy and paste to Fanfiction, it actually coded my chapter so if there are any weird things that I missed, please ignore them. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please review. Thanks!**

"When I woke up early the next morning, some daylight filtered through the thickness of the trees, but it was still mostly shadows. Cold seemed into my bones and my broken wrist throbbed with pain. I sat up and the blanket that had been on Nico rolled off my shoulders. I looked over to where he had been by the fire the night before, but he was missing.

"It's time to go" said a voice from behind me. I turned to see a very cold, but healthier looking Nico standing there, shivering.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Here" I said while I handed him the blanket. He wrapped it around himself but I knew his feet must be freezing since I still had his shoes. I stood up and faced him. He was a taller, which wasn't hard to be when you're 5'2, and his brown eyes resembled my mothers. He held out his hand but I didn't take it.

"I can do it too." I said softly. I don't know why, but as soon as I said it, I immediately regretted it.

"Do what?" he asked quickly. He looked confused, but also agitated and I wasn't sure why.

Instead of talking about it, I decide to demonstrate. I thought of me standing directly behind Nico and a second later, I was there with the cold of the shadows still clinging to me. I shuffled my feet to indicate I was behind him, but he waited a moment before turning around, like he was preparing himself. When he did, he had a worried look on his face that he tried to hide, but I knew better.

"You're okay? You don't feel bad?" I shook my head in response. "But how?" he asked himself more than me. "How much did you shadow travel?" Nico's voice was raised like he was mad.

"Well I practiced for a few hours last night," I responded nervously.

"How far did you go?"

"I hesitated a moment but the look in Nico's eyes demanded and answer. "Just around here and to my house and stuff."

"That's almost one hundred miles…" he mumbled to himself. I wasn't sure exactly but I assumed it meant I had shadow traveled that far. "It probably just hasn't set in yet" Nico said coldly. "We need to get you back to camp before you pass out and to have someone take care of your wrist." He grabbed my good hand and we slipped into the darkness without any chance to refuse going.

I was scared as the cold washed over me. I was going to an unfamiliar place with a boy I had met only hours ago who, for all I knew, could still be some sort of criminal, but as I said before: I had nothing to lose.

When we popped back into the real world, we stood next to a big blue building. I looked to my left and saw a huge field of blooming strawberries, which shouldn't have been happening in December. To my right was a volleyball court that looked like it was used a lot. I was noticing the silence of the camp when a voice rang out and startled me.

"Nico! I swear to the gods!" A boy in sweatpants and a faded orange shirt that read "Camp Half-Blood" came running towards us. Nico started leaning on me heavily, causing me to have to support his weight. I accidentally used my right hand and winced in pain. "We told you not to go get her. We said we'd send a satyr in the morning and now look at you!"

"Nico?" I asked, worried for the boy that had saved me the night before. "Are you okay?" I was extremely confused and I was afraid Nico was going to pass out and leave me alone with a stranger. Though I just met him, I felt better with him than a strange boy.

"No, he's not" the boy said while sighing angrily. "Shadow traveling fades your essence, if you didn't remember!" he said, speaking loudly in Nico's ear.

"She did it too" Nico told the boy, trying to distract him. I stared at my shoes to avoid their eyes but I could feel them on me anyway. "I don't think it's hit her yet" he added.

"First things first," the blond said, "let's get everyone to the infirmary."

The two started walking towards the big blue building, Nico leaning heavily on the new boy, and I followed cradling my still broken wrist. Once inside, we walked down a hallway and entered a large room with chairs, beds, and medical equipment. He laid Nico onto a bed and I watched from the doorway as he fed him a small yellow square that looked like a brownie. He seemed to relax after that and they began to whisper to each other, and I had a feeling that they were talking about me.

I sat down in a chair across the room and when I looked back up, the blond was walking towards me. He stopped and knelt to my level. His face seemed kind, but I was still apprehensive.

"My name's Will." His tone was considerably more gentile than when he had talked to Nico. "I need you to tell me how far you traveled last night."

"I thought for a moment before answering. "Well I practiced by myself around the campfire for about forty-five minutes, then…." I hesitated for a second and thought what happened with my foster family from the night before. I didn't want to talk about it but I had a feeling that Nico would tell him if I didn't. So, I confessed that I had shadow traveled back to my family's home outside of Buffalo but I stared at the ground, determined not to shed a single tear for those people. They didn't care about me, so I wasn't going to care about them.

"Let me see your wrist" Will said once I was done.

I looked at him in surprise but quickly realized that Nico had told him about my injury, adding to my assumption that he would have told him how far I had traveled if I hadn't. I held out my hand and pulled up Nico's jacket sleeve which was way too long on me. Will gripped my wrist lightly but I still winced from the pain. He put his other hand on top and closed his eyes. I was about to ask what he was doing, but before I got the chance, a warm sensation penetrated my skin. I looked down and saw a pale-yellow light engulfing my wrist which was coming from Will's hands. Just as I was beginning to freak out from some stranger using some weird ability on me, everything stopped. Will pulled away and I hugged my arm to my chest, trying to protect it from any other unknown powers.

"Well that should do it" Will chirped happily. "Your wrist is fixed but I'm going to give you some ambrosia for the shadow traveling for good measure.

"What's that?" I asked suspiciously as I tried to move my wrist again and was amazed to see it had healed completely. "And what did you do?"

He handed me a piece of the yellow looking brownie he had given Nico a few minutes before and I looked at curiously but allowed him to place it in my hand. "It's the food gods eat." He noticed my skepticism and smiled. "You'll love it, I promise."

I didn't know how he was able to make that promise seeing as he just met me and he didn't know my favorite color let alone my flavor preferences, but I decided to trust him. I took the small piece of godly food and placed it into my mouth. As soon as it touched my tongue, I gasped. This random yellow brownie tasted exactly like the French toast my mother and I used to make, including the vanilla syrup and powdered sugar. I looked at Will for an explanation.

"It tastes like everyone's favorite food but you can't eat too much or you'll burn up, literally. You'll catch on fire. Since this is food for gods and we're only half-god, we can't have too much. The same goes for nectar." I nodded my understanding while snacking on my ambrosia. "Good. Now I'm going to go talk to Chiron, the activities director, so stay here with death boy and make sure he doesn't go anywhere." Will looked at Nico with a glare. "And don't let her go anywhere either. I can't believe you let her break her wrist and left her defenseless all night _and_ let her shadow travel." He stood up and walked out, giving Nico a "I'm-watching-you" gesture on the way, and he returned his own one fingered gesture. Once the door closed, we sat silence for a second, enjoying the quiet. After a few minutes, a thought popped into my head that I knew I needed an answer to.  
"Who's my dad?" He looked at me with an empathetic expression. "If I have the same powers as you, wouldn't that mean we have the same parent?" He stared at me some more, not answering. "Who's your dad?"

He sat quietly for a moment and when he answered, he spoke so low I could barely recognize the word. "Hades."

 **I would also like to add that I come up with a few theories that are probably not true but thought it may add to the story in some way. If you don't agree or think that's what's happening, then that's fine. They're just my ideas.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey it's bluebinder. I tried to copy and paste this chapter and it completely messed it up after I had made some changes so I had to go back and blah, blah, blah. Long story short, I didn't really proofread this chapter so if there is something wrong or confusing, just tell me. If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please just leave a review. I hope you enjoy the story.**

"Hades."

I stared at the ceiling and let that sink in. My father could be the god of the underworld and I was sitting here at some camp with a bunch of foreign teens I didn't know who were supposedly just like me. I could normally deal with change fairly easily, but this was a completely different ball game. I had been uprooted from my old life and thrown into a new one in a matter of twelve hours. I also didn't understand that if I had been in danger for years with teachers and friends attacking me, why did they _just_ decide to come get me?

" _Do_ we have the same dad?" I asked after a few minutes.

"I think so." he admitted. "But normally you have to be officially claimed by him in order to be considered a child of Hades."

"What's that?"

"It's pretty much a dumb, fancy light show the gods do to show that a kid is theirs."

"Does that mean we're brother and sister?"

"Probably."

All I knew about this boy was that his name was Nico and he was a son of Hades. He hardly felt like an acquaintance and definitely not a brother, but this feeling was familiar since I moved from home to home a lot. Since I moved frequently, I never had enough time to make friends with the other foster kids or the children in my class, so, eventually I stopped trying. I was going to change that. I knew I liked making people happy and I liked having friends, so I decided to start with Nico.

I took off Nico's shoes and curled up further into the chair to get comfortable. "Well since we could be possible siblings, why don't you give me the rundown of your life. We fought a giant together. I figure we can share where we were born." He sighed but humored my attempt at bonding.

"I was born in Venice, Italy in the 30's. My sister Bianca and I moved to the U.S. during the start of World War II and Zeus tried to kill us but ended up just killing my mom instead. We were put in a magical casino that messes with time so we felt like we were only there for a few months but when we came out, it was about seventy years later. Bianca died on a quest a few years ago, I found my half sister, Hazel, in the underworld and brought her back. Some big quest stuff went down, the world almost ended but it didn't, and now we're here."

He sounded so nonchalant about it that it was hard to believe. He claims that he was seventy or eighty years old but looked to be fifteen, one sister dies and he brought another back to life, and a big quest happened where the world was almost destroyed. I didn't know what to say so I stayed silent.

"What about you?" He turned and looked at me like he couldn't care less, but I knew he wouldn't have asked if he didn't want that bother/sister relationship too.

I didn't know exactly to tell him my life story but I guessed that being honest was a good start. "I lived with my mom until I was ten and then one day, she didn't come home. A few hours later, a police officer came and told me she had been murdered." I had never confronted the pain of my mother's death, so it was always hard to talk about and I tried to avoid the topic as much as possible."I had no other family so I was put into the foster care system. My first family was nice. They bought me a dog once but it died. The bones kept appearing in my room so they thought I was bringing them in and it freaked them out. I terrified them and it got so bad that I just ran away but social services found me eventually and put me into another home. They were mean so I ran away and that happened another few times. They labeled me as a "problem child" so they put me into a home that was known to get children to behave, and that's where you found me." I stopped there because I didn't trust myself to say anything else.

Nico asked the question I hopped he would have left alone. "Why were you sleeping in the garage last night?"

I paused, thinking of an answer that made it seem more normal. "I think my foster parents liked their kids more than me." I said quietly. I wiped my tears away, angry at myself for getting upset over trivial things. "But it's whatever" I added. "I liked having my own space anyway." I stopped for a moment and thought about what Nico had told me about his family. "I'm sorry about your sister, by the way. I'm sure she was lovely."

"She was" he said simply.

We both sat in silence for what seemed like ages, each of us stuck in our own little world of sadness, thinking about our lives. I closed my eyes and relaxed even more into the chair, cuddling into the too big jacket for warmth. Sooner or later, I fell into a light sleep, dreaming of my old and new lives, quests, and my recently discovered abilities.

I didn't know how long I had been asleep but I woke up when Will came back to check up on us. Nico and I were both dozing, which seemed to make him happy, but he only truly relaxed when we both insisted that we felt fine.

I stood and stretched, only then noticing that I was still wearing my pajamas. Though I was wearing Nico's jacket, I was still cold in my shorts and bare feet. I shivered a little and Will noticed.

"The Stoll brothers are on their way with some clothes from the camp store for you." I nodded my appreciation and sat back down to wait. The Nico and Will talked about people I didn't know, the gods, and about what that guy named Chiron had said. They talked close and quiet, for some reason. It's not like I knew about anything they were saying anyway, and who would I tell?

A few minutes later, two boys, one taller than the other, walked in with some clothes and a pair of shoes. As they handed the clothing to Will, all they did was stare at me. I looked back and smiled, attempting to be friendly. As they were leaving, Will spoke. "Not a word" was all he said to the brothers before they left.

"How much do you want to bet that they're telling everyone else right now?" Nico asked.

"I don't want to think about it."

I was tired of not knowing what was going on so I spoke up. "About what?"

"Well you weren't supposed to be here yet, but Mr. Underworld decided to go and get you by himself."

"And I'm glad I did" he said fiercely. "That Laistrygonain was right down the street and would've gotten her before the satyr." Nico protested, arms crossed.

Will rolled his eyes. "Come on Mr. Hero," he said to Nico. "We'll be waiting on the porch" he directed at me.

I returned Nico's coat and shoes and listened to them as they bickered their way outside. I smiled and slipped into the bathroom to change. I was given a pair of jeans, a camp shirt that was two sizes too big, a pair of shoes that looked like they had seen better days, a few pairs of socks, and a winter coat that surprisingly fit well.

Once I was finished changing, I placed my other clothes into my pockets and navigated myself outside. The two boys were leaning on the railing of the porch and looking out onto camp. They seemed peaceful and content, just looking at the scenery. The door accidentally slammed shut behind me and the two of them turned, startled.

"So," Will sighed, "are you ready for the tour?"

"Yeah," I responded happily. This was the first time in years that I felt like I could actually feel at home somewhere and I finally felt like I had at least the makings of friends.

In the next hour, I saw the cabins, the deadly rock wall, the stables (I liked the pegasi), the lake, and everything else to be seen at Camp Half-Blood. I learned the schedule and the dinning procedures and that even though Nico and I had the same powers, I would be living in the Hermes cabin until I was officially claimed. The most interesting thing I learned, though, was about the history that had been made in the previous six years, and I was thoroughly impressed that Nico had had an extremely important part in the past few years. It was hard to believe that while I was in school and dealing with foster families, humanity was close to being destroyed by mother Earth herself.

As I wondered how nine demigods could take down Gaea, we started walking towards the cabins again and we found ourselves in front of a metal shed.

"What's this," I asked.

As Will unlocked it, he explained that it was the extra weapons that the camp had. "The Hephaestus cabin makes them and the extras get stored here. You have to have a weapon if you're going to fight, and that's what camp's all about: training you to survive." The door swung opened with a loud creak, revealing tons of swords, bows and arrows, daggers and more, just lying around. "Go in and find something that feels right."

I stood there for a moment, confused. "Am I supposed to be 'drawn' to a weapon or something or literally just pick any?"

"Just start picking stuff up and you'll know when you find it," Nico said, sounding a little agitated. I shot him a little warning look and as I stepped inside, I heard Will nag Nico about being more compassionate.

Weapons littered the floor of the shed and some of them looked slightly used. 'I should organize in here'I thought to myself. I started picking up weapons at random. Bows didn't feel right and with daggers, I felt too vulnerable. I was too short for the spears so I started picking up swords. The first was way too long and heavy, causing me to drop it with a loud crash. The next one was too light so I almost threw it when I tried to swing it. I sifted through tons of swords, all of them having some sort of problem.

"Do I _have_ to have a weapon," I complained. "Can't I just throw rocks at people?" The boys weren't paying attention though. They were whispering angrily to each other again. I ignored them and continued my search.

I picked through a few more swords, but finally found one that I thought looked cool. It had a bright silver blade that curved forward but widened near the tip and had a dark black hilt. I picked it up and I can't accurately describe it. It felt like the Harry Potter moment when he got his wand. It just _felt_ right.

I started walking back outside making sure not to step on and break anything when I heard part of the boy's conversation.

"You cannot be serious" Will whispered. "You can't expect Laura to go on this quest!"

"There is a reason Hades didn't tell us about her a few years ago and I think this could be the answer," Nico replied coldly. He was extremely serious and intimidating but Will didn't seem fazed.

"There's no way three children of Hades on a quest is a good omen. You can't let her-"

His sentence was cut off when I tripped and almost fell over a shield, which in turn created a loud bang. They boys turned their attention to me, Nico looking pissed off and Will worried and angry.

"Is that the one," Nico asked shortly.

"Yeah. I like it and it feels good. I don't have anywhere to put it though."

"That's weird," Will responded. "There should have been a scabbard for it in there. Are you sure you didn't see one?"

I shook my head and then tried to swing my new sword but because I was so uncoordinated, I dropped it instead. Before it hit the ground, the weapon completely disappeared. It had vanished into thin air with absolutely no trace of it.

"What was that?" Nico looked a little shocked, forgetting that he was angry.

"Where'd it go?"

"Are swords supposed to do that," I asked anxiously.

"Nope," Will said.

I held out my hand to inspect it, thinking I did something wrong and suddenly, the sword appeared back in my hand. Because I was so startled of the sudden reappearance, I dropped it again. It magically left again and everyone stared at the ground where it was supposed to be. I tried holding out my hand again and it reappeared.

Will took a step back. "That's freaky."

"Agreed. The only other sword that I know that does that is Riptide but even that stays away from Percy for a while. Try to throw it into the woods," Nico told me.

I summoned the sword and chunked it as hard as I could into the forest. I waited a second and then held out my hand and it was there again.

"I don't like it," the son of Hades concluded. "It doesn't seem safe."

I felt the need to defend my new weapon. "Well I like it. And it seems really cool and useful."

"We'll keep an eye on it and ask Chiron" Will said. "There's still over an hour until lunch. I'd like to see this shadow traveling thing and why it affects you differently."

"How am I supposed to be feeling?"

"Well after only about four hours of sleep and shadow traveling two hundred miles to your house and back, you should be unconscious at the moment."

Nico looked uneasy. "I don't think that's a great idea. More shadow traveling can't be good for her right now."

"Well we'll never know if we don't experiment. It also helps that I heal things. Plus, I have nectar and ambrosia on me."

"It's okay. I'll be fine" I insisted.

"Alright, but I'm going with you in case something happens."

I nodded but on the inside, I was extremely worried. I had only shadow traveled a few times and I had gone alone, so transporting someone else was worrisome.

"That's good," Will replied. "That way we can see if it has any effect on you too. Let's go"

We started walking into the cover of the trees, but not too far because of the monsters that supposedly inhabited the forest. After a few minutes, we found a well shaded spot and decided to stop.

"Okay," Apollo's son started, "start by just going around here and then we'll go from there."

I nodded and grabbed Nico's hand, since he had insisted on going with me. I started by just slipping in and reappearing around Will. I made it into a game for myself to see how fast I could go under and reappear and I quickly started laughing, having the time of my life. It was a little different travelling with someone but not by much. I went in and out of the shadows so quickly that Will was just a blur to me. After a while, I came back up with Nico and a smile planted on my face. i stood, waiting for my next instruction.

"How do you two feel?"

We both agreed that we felt completely fine. The boys seemed skeptical, but agreed that we'd continue. I was to go farther but within the camp borders. I decided to go to the Big House first so we slipped in and came back up in the living room where Chiron was taking a nap and snoring very loudly. I smiled and continued with the little experiment. I went outside of Hades' cabin, the dining hall, Talia's pine, and in and out of anywhere I could think of. A few minutes later, I went back to Will. I didn't know exactly where he was so I envisioned Nico and I standing next to him and once I slipped into the shadows, we were back where we had started. Once we stood in front of him, he stared hard at us.

"Both of your vitals seem normal except Laura's heart rate is a little elevated," he concluded.

"Because this is so cool!" I said excitedly. It was amazing that after being defenseless for years, I learned that I could practically teleport. I loved shadow traveling. I felt free and like I was flying. "By the way," I added, "you can see our vitals by just looking at us?"

"Yep, all thanks to dear ole dad" he said with a half-smile.

"I want to go out farther," Nico said suddenly.

"No way!" protested Will. "You're the one that didn't want to do it in the first place."

"Yeah well I want to see how far she can go."

"Absolutely not."

"It's okay, I can do it" I stated quickly. I wanted to test my limits and I also didn't want my potential half-brother to be mad at me, so I agreed.

"Fine," Will said angrily, "but _only_ in the New York area. No father."

I prepared myself and thought about where I had always wanted to visit. Nico and I started off by Niagara Falls, and then I took us to the Empire State Building (which is apparently where the gods lived), and just to touristy spots around the city. But I was tired of doing such small jumps. I wanted to check up on something, so I drifted away from New York City and shadow traveled to Buffalo instead, where my old foster family lived. I just couldn't believe that they didn't care at all for me. It was impossible. It had to be.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello it's bluebinder again. I've noticed that I have been posting a lot of content and not a lot of reviews or even follows. If you all have _any_ feedback or compliments or complaints, please let me know. I enjoy making my writing better (Lord knows it could be a lot better) and your reviews honestly make my day. And if you're enjoying the story, please follow so you can be notified when I update. I hope you enjoy this chapter and thank you for reading!**

I drifted away from New York City and shadow traveled to Buffalo instead, where my old foster family lived. I just couldn't believe that they didn't care at all for me. It was impossible. It had to be.

When we popped up, Nico immediately noticed something was off.

"Where are we?" he asked, looking around at our surroundings. "Did you do this on purpose?"

I ignored him and walked towards the street and, all the while, Nico was saying unimportant things I tuned out. I passed a light pole and noticed a piece of paper taped onto it. A girl with brown hair, freckles, green eyes and light skin looked back at me. The word that came to mind when I saw her was "average." It was my own photo staring at me. A missing person's flyer had been taped up urging people who saw me to contact the police and warning I was a "troubled child". I moved on and walked across the street to my old home. I strolled right up to the window, so immersed in my own world that Nico's voice didn't even register. I saw my foster parents at the kitchen table, studying pieces of paper that looked to be bills. I could hear Julia and Drew, their biological children, playing on the trampoline I was never allowed on. I couldn't hear what they were saying but they looked angry. I wanted to know what they were talking about so I moved into a shadow from the house and went into the unlighted hallway. Nico had unexpectedly grabbed my arm at the last second so he came along for the ride. I focused my ears on their voices.

"Of course she had something to do with it Martha! That bitch has been trouble since the day we got her; the bones, fucking with the air conditioner, and now that tree. I'd bet my right foot she had something to do with it." His face was tomato red, a color his skin only turned when he was livid.

"At least we get to redo the garage," my foster mom said in a light voice, attempting to control her husband's rage. "You've been wanting to remodel it, so at least one good thing came of this."

"Yeah," he scoffed. "We got rid of _her_."

Anger poured out of me. I had been nothing but a silent, attentive, perfect foster child used for the tax write-off since I came here and now they were blaming me for a tree crushing part of the house. I didn't know why or how, but ice was forming on the wall next to me. I could faintly feel someone pulling at my arm. I decided I was done with my "foster family". No one from the foster care system truly cared for me, so why should I care for anyone else?

I grabbed Nico's arm tightly and shadow traveled back to the Big House so quickly, I couldn't have blinked faster.I dropped Nico off and traveled the amphitheater on account of the fact that no one was supposed to be there at this time of day. I sat on the top seating tier alone and just took everything in: the powers, a new environment, not knowing who my dad was, new siblings, and just feeling plain lost and alone. After a few minutes, I finally came to the conclusion that the only person who ever loved or cared about me was my mom and she had been killed by some psycho. I sat for a moment and then the tears came. I cried for myself for the first time since my mother's death. I cried hard, ugly sobs that reverberated off the stone, but I didn't care about the noise or if anyone could hear me. I had no one. No aunts, uncles, friends, mother, and I didn't even _really_ know who my father was. That was still technically a mystery.

I didn't know how long I had sat there and let myself sob, but eventually, I was too exhausted to cry any more. I sat and breathed for a while and took in the scenery of Camp Half-Blood. I could see the lake from where I was and I watched as canoes slowly drifted across the water with the sounds of camp songs in the air. It was calming to watch. I was so content in that moment that I didn't notice when someone sat down next to me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I looked beside me and saw the boy that I had abandoned at the Big House. I turned back to look at the lake, watching the other campers intently, wishing I could belong like them.

"No. I'm fine." And I was fine. I decided that if no one was going to look after me, I was going to look after myself. I got up and started walking down the steps, hoping that Nico wouldn't follow, but not surprisingly, he did.

"You don't look fine," he called out. I ignored him and kept walking. He caught up and grabbed my shoulder, turning me to face him. His eyes looked fierce but I knew he was worried about what I had done on our little trip. "Look, I'm not going to pry, but for children of Hades, holding grudges can easily be our fatal flaw. You're here now. That life is in the past now, so you can't dwell on it. This is a new start for you. It took a talk with my dead sister for me to realize that myself." I took in what he had to say and nodded. "Good. Now come on, it's time for lunch."

Lunch and that afternoon were uneventful. I met the Stoll brothers again and saw the Hermes cabin, which is where I'd be staying until I was claimed. I went canoeing with a couple of Aphrodite girls (they were nice), and I also ended up having a free block of time meant for writing letters, but since I had no one to write to, I just wrote poetry instead. I enjoyed writing and it was something relaxing for me so it was a nice change from the morning I had had.

When it was time for dinner, I met up with the Hermes cabin (which only consisted of the Stoll brothers and a girl named Eliza, another unclaimed camper) and we got our food and then sacrificed part of it to the gods. I prayed to my father, whoever that was, though I suspected Hades, and then sat down with the rest of the cabin. Dinner was the first time I saw Chiron so when I noticed he was a centaur, I ended up staring at him for ten minutes straight, mouth agape. I spoke a little bit with the Stolls and Eliza but they were only concerned with how they were going to prank the Athena cabin back. After that, I picked at my food, taking a few bites of hamburger here and there, and stared off into space, not paying any attention. I sat like that for a while but only came back to my senses when the entire dining pavilion grew silent. I looked up to see what was going on and saw that everyone was looking slightly above my head. I glanced up, expecting to see a monster, but instead, a weird symbol glowed above me. It looked like a circle above a cross with a "U". I had no idea what was happening but I knew I had gotten everyone's attention, whether I had meant to or not. A girl across the room broke the silence.

"Oh, gods. Not another one." She sounded exasperated but I didn't know why.

Nico stood up from the same table, looking mad enough to spit fire. "Will, tell your sister to shut her mouth before she gets shadow travelled to the Underworld."

"Try me, ghost boy," she threatened back, reaching for her bow and arrows.

That's when Will stepped in. "Kayla, watch it."

The campers began murmuring amongst themselves and it slowly got louder. All eyes were on me and the whispering started getting angrier and more intense. I looked around wildly, not having any clue what was happening. It felt like chaos.

Chiron stomped the stone floor, demanding silence. He waited for a moment for everyone's attention to be on him, while also ignoring their rude comments, and then said, "Hail Laura Carson, daughter of Hades."

After a second of contemplation, everyone in the pavilion knelt down on one knee. For some reason, they all looked apprehensive and worried and even scared. I sat there, not knowing what to do or if I should say something like "thanks," or "fuck you Kayla." After a moment of awkward kneeling and silence, the director made another announcement.

"Dinner's over. Everyone head to the campfire for songs and s'mores with the Apollo cabin." Chiron seemed nonchalant and I suspected that he wanted campers to sort out their own battles and that's why he stayed out of it.

Everyone stood up, all whispering, but I could hear my name in every one of their conversations. I didn't know what I had done wrong by being claimed. I stayed seated not knowing what to think when Nico came up to me.

"Well I guess were officially siblings." He sounded casual, like I hadn't just unintentionally made a scene in the dining hall.

"Why'd they act like that? Did I do something wrong?"

"I think I can answer that" Chiron said while walking towards us. "Hades hasn't always been welcome in Olympus," he explained. "So that, in turn, was rubbed off onto the children. So, they're apprehensive about children of Hades. Even the Romans at Camp Jupiter fear Pluto. People are afraid of death and they need someone to blame."

It took me a moment to take everything in but when I did, I was immensely irritated.

"So, I'm a freak here too?! What happened to us all being the same or whatever?" My voice became loud and angry with the injustice. "Just because my dad is the god of the underworld, everyone hates me? How fair is that?"

I didn't want to hear any more excuses or explanations, I just wanted to be alone and to think of a solution to this madness, so I headed to the cabins, now going to the Hades one, to think. I tended to resolve things better in silence.

When I walked inside, I was horrified at how morbid it was. Beds that looked like coffins and blood red sheets filled my vision. I didn't complain very long though, since I was lucky to have a bed at all, and chose one next to the wall and laid down and stared at the bunk above me. I started thinking about the memories of bullying and names used to hurt me, but I blocked them out quickly. I didn't want that to happen again so, I had to come up with a way to make these people change their minds. I was determined not to be an outcast here too. I thought and thought and thought but I could only come up with one solution: kill 'em with kindness. I just had to show them that their beliefs and fears were wrong and that children of Hades are good people, just like anyone else.

I must have been wrapped up in my thoughts for longer than I imagined because sooner than later, Nico came back, smelling like campfire. I checked the alarm clock on the nightstand next to me and saw that it was 9:15. He went and sat down on a half-made bed I assumed he had claimed for himself and pulled out a book. I looked at him, the boy that has taken care of me since I had gotten here and wondered how almost no one could see his good side. Even though he was a little intimidating and acted like he didn't care, I knew he had a soft side, kind of like a burnt marshmallow.

"Have they always been like this to you," I asked him.

He sighed and waited a moment before answering. "Yeah, but it used to be worse. Hades didn't even have a cabin here until about three years ago, so I had no place to go. Children of Hades weren't welcomed here, but that changed when Percy told the gods to claim all of their children by thirteen and to honor all of the gods, major and minor, so-"

"Wait," I cut off, "the gods have to claim their children by thirteen? But I turned thirteen months ago and just got here yesterday."

Nico cursed to himself in some foreign language and stared at the wall for a minute before speaking.

"Yeah. Hades was supposed to tell the camp that you existed and we were supposed to come get you, but for some reason, he didn't. We didn't know about you until a week ago."

"Then how did you find out, since dead-beat dad of the year- no pun intended- didn't tell anyone."

He sighed again heavily and looked like he was trying to choose his words carefully. "Hecate told Hazel about an "unknown child of death" and pointed us in the right direction. We went through a couple dozen kids- we have a file of potential demi-gods in the United States, but none of them met the criteria until we saw yours. Multiple school expulsions, moving from home to home, trouble following you, plus that fact that you have ADHD told us that you were the "unknown" camper. We were going to send a satyr this morning to go get you, but I went early instead."

"But why? It was only like a twelve-hour difference." I was concerned and touched at the same time. I knew if he hadn't of come when he did, I probably would have been taken by that giant.

"I don't know," he said. "I just had a bad feeling and figured I should go. I take my family very seriously since losing my mother and then Bianca. I couldn't let that happen to another sister. That's why I saved Hazel from Asphodel."

I didn't know what to do, so I said, "thank you."

"We need to talk," he continued. He turned in his bed to face me and he looked very serious. "You know how Hecate told us about you?" I nodded my understanding. "Well she told us because you're supposed to go on a quest with me and Hazel."


	6. The rest of Three is a Magic Number

**Hello. So, I received a review recently saying they wanted me to come back. I don't plan on completely finishing this story, so I have decided to just post the entirety of what I have right now. This starts from the beginning and is completely unedited. This is coming straight from my computer and if something doesn't match up or make sense, sorry but like I said, it is unedited. Some things probably don't match to what I originally posted because I changed it to be better. If anyone is actually interested, I will tell you the ending to the story. The entire thing is about 54 pages long and I had a blast writing it but just fell out of it. I had plans to write a book but that is seeming to fall through even though I really like the idea. Writing is just something I am not doing too much this semester because of all of the writing I already have to do and plus no one was reading my story anyway. But I hope you enjoy the rest of Three is a Magic Number.**

I laid on my pile of blankets and stared up at garage ceiling, thinking about everything and nothing at once. Staring at the clock, I saw that only minutes had passed since I last looked at 1:05 am. Rolling over for what seemed like the millionth time, I sighed and slowly closed my eyes. I let my thoughts and imagination wander, hoping it would help me relax, but just as I felt myself drifting off, a loud crash brought me back to my senses. I sat up quickly and scanned the area while groping for my trusty flashlight and praying that the opossum hadn't returned from the week before.

I shined the beam of light around frantically, attempting to find the culprit of the intrusion and discovered something completely unexpected; a boy was standing in front of the door that led into the house. He looked irritated, around my age, and was of average height, but skinny. He wore black jeans, a skull shirt under a thick aviator's jacket, and an odd-looking skull ring.

Adrenaline coursed through my body and fear overtook rational thought in the face of danger. He could potentially be a thief or a murderer or any other terrifying criminal in between. Once I realized I couldn't flee because he was in front of the door, my fight response took over and anger replaced fear. 'How dare he' I thought to myself. 'He's in my space and privacy.' I grabbed the closest blunt object I could find, which happened to be an old lamp they had intended to throw out, and held it up, ready to defend myself; ready to win at any cost.

"What are you doing in here," I hissed angrily, trying not to be loud enough to wake my foster family. I knew I probably wouldn't win in a fight since he was larger and more menacing, but I was willing to put up the fight of my life and the lamp helped raise my confidence, if only a little.

"What are _you_ doing in here," he yell-whispered back, exasperated. "This is the garage and it's like one in the morning!"

My anger was slipping away as reality set in and I realized this boy could hurt me in ways I probably couldn't even imagine. "What do you want" I asked, accidentally letting some fear slip into my voice. I cleared my throat. "And how'd you get in here? I'm not going to let you steal anything if that's what you're after." I tried to sound confident, but he knew and I knew that I was faking it. I came closer with my lamp, now using it like a fencing sword, trying to back him up. Looking irritated, he held up his hands, indicating a truce, but I knew better. He quickly glanced out of the garage window and his face suddenly turned serious.

"Look, I'm not here to steal anything but we need to go, and soon." I must have been making an "are-you-crazy" kind of face because he added "and yes, I'm for real. My name's Nico and I'm going to take you somewhere safe. It's called Camp Half-Blood."

" _Safe_ ," I interjected, giving an exasperated laugh. "From what? A thief breaks into my garage and tells me I'll be safe if I go with him? Yeah right. If you don't leave right now, I'll go inside and tell my…," I pause, "parents you're here."

"Your name's Laura, right? Laura Carson?" Nico began sounding desperate and rushing his words, like he was in a hurry. "You're thirteen, and you live with your foster parents. You've run away from four other homes and been kicked out of three schools."

I was shocked and frightened at the same time. This complete stranger knew things about me that I had only told a handful of people before. My voice began to break with fear and anger

"How do you know all of that? Have you been following me or something? Or did you get to one of my old friends?" Tears started streaming down my face and I gripped the lamp harder. Terror filled my core and I was starting to become hopeless that anyone was coming to my rescue. "What do you want?" I whispered.

"Have any weird or odd things ever happened that you couldn't explain?" he continued, ignoring my many questions. "Like maybe monsters or teachers that have tried to attack you? And that's when you get kicked out of school, right?" I nodded, but I still didn't know how he knew any of these things. I was also extremely surprised that someone seemed to believe my accusations for once. "Do you remember the Greek and Roman gods you learned about in school?" I nodded, not knowing why I was entertaining his conversation. "I know it sounds crazy but they're real and you're just like me and everyone else at this camp. We're called demigods, you have powers, one of your parents is a god, and I think I know who it is. But we need to leave. Now that you know about it, monsters can target you ten times better now. Plus, something was already coming." He looked around, seeming anxious and like he was ready to leave.

I was about to say something like "you're insane" or "holy shit, get out of my house" when I noticed a car alarm going off down the street. We stood completely still for a moment or two, both noticing it and looking at each other, anticipating something; anything. Nothing happened at first but then I heard a noise outside.

The garage door was violently torn from the house with the earsplitting sound of metal on metal. I covered my ears and closed my eyes and when I looked back, in its place stood a giant, and I mean a literal giant. He was at least eight feet tall with terrifyingly sharp teeth and wore pink basketball shorts, which I thought was a little odd. I had no idea what this thing was but I did know one thing; that I was scared out of my mind.

As I stood frozen in fear, Nico unsheathed an all-black sword that I had failed to notice before now. All I had to protect me against this giant was a puny little goth kid and a lamp. I was doomed.

"What _is_ that thing" I asked Nico as I scooted closer to him. If I had to go with someone, it'd be him.

"It's a Laistrygonain, a man-eating giant." His voice was cold but the winter air now coming into the garage was colder. I shivered and tried to cover my jacket-less limbs.

The monster laughed and the noise reverberated within my bones, shaking my core. "You think you can defeat me with that little sword? We Laistrygonains can't be destroyed so easily. And I am not here for you, boy, but if you stand in my way, prepare yourself for death."

Reaching into the yard, the monster uprooted an ancient oak tree like it was a little daisy and was about to throw it on the garage, crushing us, but Nico grabbed my arm at the last second, pulling me outside. The tree came down with a deafening crash and the entire garage was demolished instantly. The ringing in my ears made me dizzy, but I didn't have time to recover before the Laistrygonain grabbed a street light from its post, sending sparks flying. He swung it like a baseball bat and instincts I didn't know I had took over. Nico and I dropped to the ground, narrowly missing the swing. While we were getting up, the monster, who was a lot faster than I had anticipated for him being that big, snatched me up by the midriff and squeezed and shook me. Stars danced in my vision and I tried to keep from blacking out from fear and pain. I dropped my lamp and the giant laughed. His breath smelled like rotting fish and gummy bears, which made me nauseous. He brought me closer to his face and stared right at me.

"I've been looking for you for days, Laura Carson," he growled, "and now I may bring you to my master to be rewarded."

A strange feeling began in my core and raced its way up to my fingertips, leaving behind an icy cold trail. A moment later, a chicken bone flew into my hand and to say that I was thoroughly confused would be an understatement, but I had no time to think. I took the bone and jammed it into one of the giant's eyes. He dropped me and howled in pain. I fell seven feet to the ground and attempted to break my fall with my hands. When my right hand met the ground, I heard a sickening snap that reminded me of breaking a twig, but unfortunately, it was my wrist breaking. I howled in pain and rolled over on my side, but I noticed how quickly the monster was recovering so I rose to my feet and scrambled over to Nico. I was shaky and out of breath and my wrist seared with pain, but other than that, I was okay.

The boy held out his hand, palm down to the ground and for a few seconds, nothing happened and I began to wonder why he was wasting time. After a moment, the yard began to rumble like an earthquake and a giant rip opened in my foster parent's front yard. Skeletons clamored out of the hole and advanced on the Laistrygonain with swords and spears from all different time periods. He put up a good fight, kicking and throwing things at them, but he was soon outnumbered. He fell and the undead hauled him towards the crevice. The sounds of his threats, pleas, and terror filled my ears as he was dragged into the trench. The rip closed, leaving behind no evidence; like nothing had even happened. I didn't notice until then that tears were streaming down my face.

We stood in silence, waiting for something to break the tension and police sirens in the distance did the trick. I saw neighbors beginning to look out of their windows to investigate the commotion and I started to get worried, so I looked at Nico, expecting him to have an answer or explanation or plan, but he just looked exhausted. Sweat lined his forehead even though it was a late December night in New York and he looked like he was going to be sick and pass out any second.

"We should go. Two demigods of the big three will only attract more monsters." He was panting with every breath.

"Where are we going to go?" I asked, exasperated and irritated. "We can't drive and the police will be looking for us since the yard is a complete wreck and the garage is destroyed." My panic was setting in. Everyone was going to blame this on me since I was the problem foster child. I couldn't let that happen. I began to look around for an escape route but Nico placed his hand on my shoulder, leaning heavily on me. I winced as I moved my broken wrist to help him. I used my other hand instead.

"We're not running. We're going to shadow travel, but I can't take us far. I need to rest."

"'Shadow travel?' What's that? And where are we going? I can't just leave my family." I started to ramble, thinking of everything bad that could happen including ending up in juvie, getting killed, and being left with my foster family and a broken house.

"You'll have to trust me, but we _have_ to leave. You're one of us now."

"Can I at least find my shoes and a coat first?" I asked meekly. The winter air was frigid and I was starting to lose feeling in my extremities with only a tee shirt and shorts on.

Nico took off his shoes and his aviator's jacket and handed them to me. "I'll be fine" he said after I hesitated. "We're going somewhere warm."

I took the coat and shoes and put them on as quickly as I could. Nico seemed to notice my pain for the first time.

"Are you okay?" he asked, a little more lucidity coming through.

"No," I replied instinctively. I had learned in my old foster home not to complain about injuries or illnesses because dealing with the pain was better than dealing with them.

Nico quickly grabbed my right wrist and I wailed in pain, making him drop my hand. I cradled it as tears stung my eyes and his face hardened to stone.

"We're leaving" he said coldly. I heard him mumble about forgetting something called ambrosia, but I didn't know what it was.

I wondered what I had said to make him mad but before I could ask or react in any way, he grabbed my good wrist and I felt us slipping into the shadows. Darkness and cold washed over me and voices called out, pleading for help. A blood curdling scream filled my ears right as we came out. We landed near a fire that had been built. It was starting to go out but could easily be brought back with a little work. As I was looking at the surroundings, I heard a thump, so I turned around and saw Nico on the ground. He looked half dead.

"Nico! What are you doing? What's wrong?" I stammered.

He murmured something along the lines of "I need sleep" and then passed out. I could hear light snoring, indicating that he had miraculously already fallen asleep. I looked around, not having any idea where we were or what to do. I decided to survey my situation. We were in the middle of the woods with a fire that was going out, a boy was passed out from exhaustion, I had almost no survival experience, monsters could be after us at that exact moment, and I had broken my dominant hand's wrist. The outcome looked grim, but I decided that building up the fire was priority one. I went around and gathered as much firewood as I could and during my chore, I found a thick blanket that I assumed Nico had packed and I draped it over him to keep the cold at bay since I had his jacket and shoes.

Once the fire was blazing again, I sat down and attempted to accept what I had learned over the past hour and a half. I was a demigod, one of my parents was a god, I apparently could summon chicken bones, and I was stuck in the middle of the woods with the possibility that monsters could be hunting me. I tried to be surprised, but I honestly wasn't. through the years, I had learned to become numb to change and let it roll off my back without a second thought. I believed instead of brooding and worrying about what I couldn't change, you should go with the flow.

I laid down and tried to sleep, but I was too cold and my wrist hurt too much. I should've been exhausted but anxiety gnawed at the back of my mind. I sat up and stared at the fire, letting my mind wander and I remembered something Nico had said. "You have powers" I replayed in my head. I thought about when I summoned a bone earlier and guessed that that was one.

Ever since I was little, I somehow kind of knew where things were buried. It freaked the other kids out when I'd tell them they were standing over a dead rabbit or cat, so I kept it to myself. But now that I knew I could at least summon bones, I was curious to see what I could do.

I decided to attempt something familiar, so I tried to sense any bones that were around and I found that I could tell that there was a dead deer about 100 feet to my left. All of its bones were there and it had died a long time ago; weeks, maybe even months ago. I held out my hand, mimicking what I had done earlier and imagined one of its bones coming to me, thinking that that's how that worked. The same icy trail started up my fingertips and I could feel it start to move. As it got closer, I could sense the death on it and after a moment, the bone shot into my hand like before. I examined it for a second and then tossed it into the woods, seeing as it held no value. Though I was slightly disappointed one of my powers was centered around death, I was excited that I had any at all. It seemed that Nico had been telling the truth about at least one thing.

I had no idea what other powers demigods had so I tried to think of potential ones but came up blank. My creativity had greatly diminished over the years. The only other power I knew of was the shadow traveling and raising of the dead that Nico did. Both seemed terribly out of reach for my ability but I wanted to try something and shadow traveling seemed safer than summoning skeletons. I was scared and felt completely dumb for trying, but at this point, there was nothing to lose. I was alone with no one to miss me, so why shouldn't I try something that could be potentially dangerous?

I didn't know how traveling in the shadows happened but I had always imagined super powers worked by you imagining what you wanted to happen and it would, so I tried that. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and thought about my body melting into the darkness surrounding me. I imagined myself sitting on the other side of the fire and when I felt iciness washing over me and the screams of what I assumed was the dead, I knew it was working. When I opened my eyes, I found myself right where I wanted to be: on the other side of the fire.

"Woah" I whispered to myself.

I smiled, elated that I had figured out something on my own. I decided I'd try again and thought of myself going under and reappearing next to Nico's sleeping figure. A split-second later, I was sitting next to the goth boy. I went back and forth for about ten minutes, letting the cold and screams wash over me each time. I was freezing, but the adrenaline pumping through my system didn't notice.

After I felt like I had gotten the hang of shadow traveling, I settled on the decision to push the boundaries. I was nervous but quickly reminded myself that I had literally nothing to lose.

I stood up, taking care of my wrist, and thought of the only place I wanted to visit in that moment. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I closed my eyes and thought about where I wanted to go. I felt the side effects of traveling by shadows take hold and when it was over, I opened my eyes.

I was standing on the edge of the woods by my foster family's home. Red, blue, and white flashing lights of different speeds blinded me and I realized what I saw. Police, ambulances, and firetrucks lined the street. Men and women in uniforms sifted through the rubble that used to be where I slept, looking for me. My foster parents were standing outside looking frustrated and inconvenienced while their two children yawned and continuously wiped sleep from their eyes. **(** I heard my foster dad yell "How long is this going to take? Its 2:30 in the morning for fucks sake." He was always a yeller. I watched as the baffled police officer talk to him a moment more before walking off. I realized it at the same moment as that officer did that my family didn't care about me. **) (maybe change in what's in parenthesis)** They weren't worried about whether I was dead or alive or screaming in pain from being crushed by a fallen building. All they cared about was their sleep and how much the rebuilding of the garage was going to cost.

I could feel the tears streaming down my face and I tried to wipe them away because I knew crying was not going to do me any good, but the tears wouldn't stop. I had seen enough. I closed my eyes and thought of me standing beside Nico and the warmth of the fire. In the blink of an eye, I was there. I looked around and noticed he had rolled over but nothing else had changed since I had left. I built the fire back up a little and laid down next to it, trying to melt away the cold of the shadows. I don't know when, but at some time in the night I fell asleep.

When I woke up early the next morning, some daylight filtered through the thickness of the trees, but it was still mostly shadows. Cold seemed into my bones and my broken wrist throbbed with pain. I sat up and the blanket that had been on Nico rolled off my shoulders. I looked over to where he had been by the fire the night before, but he was missing.

"It's time to go" said a voice from behind me. I turned to see a very cold, but healthier looking Nico standing there, shivering.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Here" I said while I handed him the blanket. He wrapped it around himself but I knew his feet must be freezing since I still had his shoes. I stood up and faced him. He was a taller, which wasn't hard to be when you're 5'2, and his brown eyes resembled my mothers. He held out his hand but I didn't take it.

"I can do it too." I said softly. I don't know why, but as soon as I said it, I immediately regretted it.

"Do what?" he asked quickly. He looked confused, but also agitated and I wasn't sure why.

Instead of talking about it, I decide to demonstrate. I thought of my standing directly behind Nico and a second later, I was there with the cold of the shadows still clinging to me. I shuffled my feet to indicate I was behind him, but he waited a moment before turning around, like he was preparing himself. When he did, he had a worried look on his face that he tried to hide, but I knew better.

"You're okay? You don't feel bad?" I shook my head in response. "But how?" he asked himself more than me. "How much did you shadow travel?" Nico's voice was raised and he was mad.

"Well I practiced for a few hours last night," I responded nervously.

"How far did you go?"

I hesitated a moment but the look in Nico's eyes demanded and answer. "Just around here and to my house and stuff."

"That's almost one hundred miles…" he mumbled to himself. I wasn't sure exactly but I assumed it meant I had shadow traveled that far. "It probably just hasn't set in yet" Nico said coldly. "We need to get you back to camp before you pass out and to have someone take care of your wrist." He grabbed my good hand and we slipped into the darkness without any chance to refuse going or saying anything at all.

I was scared as the cold washed over me. I was going to an unfamiliar place with a boy I had met only hours ago who, for all I knew, could still be some sort of criminal, but as I said before: I had nothing to lose.

When we popped back into the real world, we stood next to a big blue building. I looked to my left and saw a huge field of blooming strawberries, which shouldn't have been happening in December. To my right was a volleyball court that looked like it was used a lot. I was noticing the silence of the camp when a voice rang out and startled me.

"Nico! I swear to the gods!" A boy in sweatpants and a faded orange shirt that read "Camp Half-Blood" came running towards us. Nico started leaning on me heavily, causing me to have to support his weight. I accidentally used my right hand and winced in pain. "We told you not to go get her. We said we'd send a satyr in the morning and now look at you!"

"Nico?" I asked, worried for the boy that had saved me the night before. "Are you okay?" I was extremely confused and I was afraid Nico was going to pass out and leave me alone with a stranger. Though I just met him, I felt better with him than a strange boy.

"No, he's not" the boy said while sighing angrily. "Shadow traveling fades your essence, if you didn't remember!" he said, speaking loudly in Nico's ear.

"She did it too" Nico told the boy, trying to distract him. I stared at my shoes to avoid their eyes but I could feel them on me anyway. "I don't think it's hit her yet" he added.

"First things first," the blond said, "let's get everyone to the infirmary."

The two started walking towards the big blue building, Nico leaning heavily on the new boy, and I followed cradling my still broken wrist. Once inside, we walked down a hallway and entered a large room with chairs, beds, and medical equipment. He laid Nico onto a bed and I watched from the doorway as he fed him a small yellow square that looked like a brownie. He seemed to relax after that and they began to whisper to each other, and I had a feeling that they were talking about me.

I sat down in a chair across the room and when I looked back up, the blond was walking towards me. He stopped and knelt to my level. His face seemed kind, but I was still apprehensive.

"My name's Will." His tone was considerably more gentile than when he had talked to Nico. "I need you to tell me how far you traveled last night."

 **(** I thought for a moment before answering. "Well I practiced by myself around the campfire for about forty-five minutes, then…." I hesitated for a second and thought what happened with my foster family from the night before. I didn't want to talk about it but I had a feeling that Nico would tell him if I didn't. So, I confessed that I had shadow traveled back to my family's home outside of Buffalo but I stared at the ground, determined not to shed a single tear for those people. They didn't care about me, so I wasn't going to care about them.

"Let me see your wrist" Will said once I was done.

I looked at him in surprise but quickly realized that Nico had told him about my injury, adding to my assumption that he would have told him how far I had traveled if I hadn't. I held out my hand and pulled up Nico's jacket sleeve which was way too long on me. Will gripped my wrist lightly but I still winced from the pain. He put his other hand on top and closed his eyes. I was about to ask what he was doing, but before I got the chance, a warm sensation penetrated my skin. I looked down and saw a pale-yellow light engulfing my hand which was coming from Will's hands. Just as I was beginning to freak out from some stranger using some weird ability on me, everything stopped. Will pulled away and I hugged my arm to my chest, trying to protect it from any other unknown powers.

"Well that should do it" Will chirped happily. "Your wrist fixed but I'm going to give you some ambrosia for the shadow traveling for good measure.

"What's that?" I asked suspiciously as I tried to move my wrist again and was amazed to see it had healed completely. "And what did you do?"

He handed me a piece of the yellow looking brownie he had given Nico a few minutes before and I looked at curiously but allowed him to place it in my hand.

"It's the food gods eat." He noticed my skepticism and smiled. "You'll love it, I promise."

I didn't know how he was able to make that promise seeing as he just met me and he didn't know my favorite color let alone my flavor preferences, but I decided to trust him. I took the small piece of godly food and placed it into my mouth. As soon as it touched my tongue, I gasped. This random yellow brownie tasted exactly like the French toast my mother and I used to make, including the vanilla syrup and powdered sugar. I looked at Will for an explanation. **) (new. Watch out for it)**

"It tastes like everyone's favorite food but you can't eat too much or you'll burn up, literally. You'll catch on fire. Since this is food for gods and we're only half-god, we can't have too much. The same goes for nectar." I nodded my understanding while snacking on my ambrosia. "Good. Now I'm going to go talk to Chiron, who's the activities director, so stay here with death boy and make sure he doesn't go anywhere." Will looked at Nico with a glare. "And don't let her go anywhere either. I can't believe you let her break her wrist and left her defenseless all night _and_ let her shadow travel." He stood up and walked out, giving Nico a "I'm-watching-you" gesture on the way. Once the door closed, we sat silence for a second, enjoying the quiet. After a few minutes, a thought popped into my head that I knew I needed an answer to.

"Who's my dad?" He looked at me with an empathetic expression. "If I have the same powers as you, wouldn't that mean we have the same parent?" He stared at me some more, not answering. "Who's your parent?"

He sat quietly for a moment and when he answered, he spoke so low I could barely recognize the word. "Hades."

I stared at the ceiling and let that sink in. My father could be the god of the underworld and I was sitting here at some camp with a bunch of foreign teens I didn't know who were supposedly just like me. I could normally deal with change fairly easily, but this was a completely different ball game. I had been uprooted from my old life and thrown into a new one in a matter of twelve hours. I also didn't understand that if I had been in danger for years with teachers and friends attacking me, why did they _just_ decide to come get me?

" _Do_ we have the same dad?" I asked after a few minutes.

"I think so." he admitted. "But normally you have to be officially claimed by him in order to be considered a child of Hades."

"What's that?"

"It's pretty much a dumb, fancy light show the gods do to show that a kid is theirs."

"Does that mean we're brother and sister?"

"Probably."

All I knew about this boy was that his name was Nico and he was a son of Hades. He hardly felt like an acquaintance and definitely not a brother, but this feeling was familiar since I moved from home to home a lot. Since I moved frequently, I never had enough time to make friends with the other foster kids or the children in my class, so, eventually I stopped trying. I was going to change that. I knew I liked making people happy and I liked having friends, so I decided to start with Nico.

I took off Nico's shoes and curled up further into the chair to get comfortable. "Well since we could be possible siblings, why don't you give me the rundown of your life. We fought a giant together. I figure we can share where we were born." He sighed but humored my attempt at bonding.

"I was born in Venice, Italy in the 30's. My sister Bianca and I moved to the U.S. during the start of World War II and Zeus tried to kill us but ended up just killing my mom instead. We were put in a magical casino that messes with time so we felt like we were only there for a few months but when we came out, it was about seventy years later. Bianca died on a quest a few years ago, I found my half sister, Hazel, in the underworld and brought her back. Some big quest stuff went down, the world almost ended but it didn't, and now we're here."

He sounded so nonchalant about it that it was hard to believe. He claims that he was seventy or eighty years old but looked to be fifteen, one sister dies and he brought another back to life, and a big quest happened where the world was almost destroyed. I didn't know what to say so I stayed silent.

"What about you?" He turned and looked at me like he couldn't care less, but I knew he wouldn't have asked if he didn't want that bother/sister relationship too.

I didn't know exactly to tell him my life story but I guessed that being honest was a good start. "I lived with my mom until I was ten and then one day, she didn't come home. A few hours later, a police officer came and told me she had been murdered." I had never confronted the pain of my mother's death, so it was always hard to talk about and I tried to avoid the topic as much as possible."I had no other family so I was put into the foster care system. My first family was nice. They bought me a dog once but it died. The bones kept appearing in my room so they thought I was bringing them in and it freaked them out. I terrified them and it got so bad that I just ran away but social services found me eventually and put me into another home. They were mean so I ran away and that happened another few times. They labeled me as a "problem child" so they put me into a home that was known to get children to behave, and that's where you found me." I stopped there because I didn't trust myself to say anything else.

Nico asked the question I hopped he would have left alone. "Why were you sleeping in the garage last night?"

I paused, thinking of an answer that made it seem more normal. "I think my foster parents liked their kids more than me." I said quietly. I wiped my tears away, angry at myself for getting upset over trivial things. "But it's whatever" I added. "I liked having my own space anyway." I stopped for a moment and thought about what Nico had told me about his family. "I'm sorry about your sister, by the way. I'm sure she was lovely."

"She was" he said simply.

We both sat in silence for what seemed like ages, each of us stuck in our own little world of sadness, thinking about our lives. I closed my eyes and relaxed even more into the chair, cuddling into the too big jacket for warmth. Sooner or later, I fell into a light sleep, dreaming of my old and new lives, quests, and my recently discovered abilities.

I didn't know how long I had been asleep but I woke up when Will came back to check up on us. Nico and I were both dozing, which seemed to make him happy, but he only truly relaxed when we both insisted that we felt fine.

I stood and stretched, only then noticing that I was still wearing my pajamas. Though I was wearing Nico's jacket, I was still cold in my shorts and bare feet. I shivered a little and Will noticed.

"The Stoll brothers are on their way with some clothes from the camp store for you." I nodded my appreciation and sat back down to wait. The Nico and Will talked about people I didn't know, the gods, and about what that guy named Chiron had said. They talked close and quiet, for some reason. It's not like I knew about anything they were saying anyway, and who would I tell?

A few minutes later, two boys, one taller than the other, walked in with some clothes and a pair of shoes. As they handed the clothing to Will, all they did was stare at me. I looked back and smiled, attempting to be friendly. As they were leaving, Will spoke. "Not a word" was all he said to the brothers before they left.

"How much do you want to bet that they're telling everyone else right now?" Nico asked.

"I don't want to think about it."

I was tired of not knowing what was going on so I spoke up. "About what?"

"Well you weren't supposed to be here yet, but Mr. Underworld decided to go and get you by himself."

"And I'm glad I did" he said fiercely. "That Laistrygonain was right down the street and would've gotten her before the satyr." Nico protested, arms crossed.

Will rolled his eyes. "Come on Mr. Hero," he said to Nico. "We'll be waiting on the porch" he directed at me.

I returned Nico's coat and shoes and listened to them as they bickered their way outside. I smiled and slipped into the bathroom to change. I was given a pair of jeans, a camp shirt that was two sizes too big, a pair of shoes that looked like they had seen better days, a few pairs of socks, and a winter coat that surprisingly fit well.

Once I was finished changing, I placed my other clothes into my pockets and navigated myself outside. The two boys were leaning on the railing of the porch and looking out onto camp. They seemed peaceful and content, just looking at the scenery. The door accidently slammed shut behind me and the two of them turned, startled.

"So," Will sighed, "are you ready for the tour?"

"Yeah," I responded happily. This was the first time in years that I felt like I could actually feel at home somewhere and I finally felt like I had at least the makings of friends.

In the next hour, I saw the cabins, the deadly rock wall, the stables (I liked the pegasi), the lake, and everything else to be seen at Camp Half-Blood. I learned the schedule and the dinning procedures and that even though Nico and I had the same powers, I would be living in the Hermes cabin until I was officially claimed. The most interesting thing I learned, though, was about the history that had been made in the previous six years, and I was thoroughly impressed that Nico had had an extremely important part in the past few years. It was hard to believe that while I was in school and dealing with foster families, humanity was close to being destroyed by mother Earth herself.

As I wondered how nine demigods could take down Gaea, we started walking towards the cabins again and we found ourselves in front of a metal shed.

"What's this," I asked.

As Will unlocked it, he explained that it was the extra weapons that the camp had. "The Hephaestus cabin makes them and the extras get stored here. You have to have a weapon if you're going to fight, and that's what camp's all about: training you to survive." The door swung opened with a loud creak, revealing tons of swords, bows and arrows, daggers and more, just lying around. "Go in and find something that feels right."

I stood there for a moment, confused. "Am I supposed to be 'drawn' to a weapon or something or literally just pick any?"

"Just start picking stuff up and you'll know when you find it," Nico said, sounding a little agitated. I shot him a little warning look and as I stepped inside, I heard Will nag Nico about being more companionate.

Weapons littered the floor of the shed and some of them looked slightly used. 'I should organize in here'I thought to myself. I started picking up weapons at random. Bows didn't feel right and with daggers, I felt too vulnerable. I was too short for the spears so I started picking up swords. The first was way too long and heavy, causing me to drop it with a loud crash. The next one was too light so I almost threw it when I tried to swing it. I sifted through tons of swords, all of them having some sort of problem.

"Do I _have_ to have a weapon," I complained. "Can't I just throw rocks at people?" The boys weren't paying attention though. They were whispering angrily to each other again. I ignored them and continued my search.

I picked through a few more swords, but finally found one that I thought looked cool. It had a bright silver blade that curved forward but widened near the tip and had a dark black hilt. I picked it up and I can't accurately describe it. It felt like the Harry Potter moment when he got his wand. It just _felt_ right.

I started walking back outside making sure not to step on and break anything when I heard part of the boy's conversation.

"You cannot be serious" Will whispered. "You can't expect Laura to go on this quest!"

"There is a reason Hades didn't tell us about her a few years ago and I think this could be the answer," Nico replied coldly. He was extremely serious and intimidating but Will didn't seem fazed.

"There's no way three children of Hades on a quest is a good omen. You can't let her-"

His sentence was cut off when I tripped and almost fell over a shield, which in turn created a loud bang. They boys turned their attention to me, Nico looking pissed off and Will worried and angry.

"Is that the one," Nico asked shortly.

"Yeah. I like it and it feels good. I don't have anywhere to put it though."

"That's weird," Will responded. "There should have been a scabbard for it in there. Are you sure you didn't see one?"

I shook my head and then tried to swing my new sword but because I was so uncoordinated, I dropped it instead. Before it hit the ground, the weapon completely disappeared. It had vanished into thin air with absolutely no trace of it.

"What was that?" Nico looked a little shocked, forgetting that he was angry.

"Where'd it go?"

"Are swords supposed to do that," I asked anxiously.

"Nope," Will said.

I held out my hand to inspect it, thinking I did something wrong and suddenly, the sword appeared back in my hand. Because I was so startled of the sudden reappearance, I dropped it again. It magically left again and everyone stared at the ground where it was supposed to be. I tried holding out my hand again and it reappeared.

Will took a step back. "That's freaky."

"Agreed. The only other sword that I know that does that is Riptide but even that stays away from Percy for a while. Try to throw it into the woods," Nico told me.

I summoned the sword and chunked it as hard as I could into the forest. I waited a second and then held out my hand and it was there again.

"I don't like it," the son of Hades concluded. "It doesn't seem safe."

I felt the need to defend my new weapon. "Well I like it. And it seems really cool and useful."

"We'll keep an eye on it and ask Chiron" Will said. "There's still over an hour until lunch. I'd like to see this shadow traveling thing and why it affects you differently."

"How am I supposed to be feeling?"

"Well after only about four hours of sleep and shadow traveling two hundred miles to your house and back, you should be unconscious at the moment."

Nico looked uneasy. "I don't think that's a great idea. More shadow traveling can't be good for her right now."

"Well we'll never know if we don't experiment. It also helps that I heal things. Plus, I have nectar and ambrosia on me."

"It's okay. I'll be fine" I insisted.

"Alright, but I'm going with you in case something happens."

I nodded but on the inside, I was extremely worried. I had only shadow traveled a few times and I had gone alone, so transporting someone else was worrisome.

"That's good," Will replied. "That way we can see if it has any effect on you too. Let's go"

We started walking into the cover of the trees, but not too far because of the monsters that supposedly inhabited the forest. After a few minutes, we found a well shaded spot and decided to stop.

"Okay," Apollo's son started, "start by just going around here and then we'll go from there."

I nodded and grabbed Nico's hand, since he had insisted on going with me. I started by just slipping in and reappearing around Will. I made it into a game for myself to see how fast I could go under and reappear and I quickly started laughing, having the time of my life. It was a little different travelling with someone but not by much. I went in and out of the shadows so quickly that Will was just a blur to me. After a while, I came back up with Nico and a smile planted on my face. i stood, waiting for my next instruction.

"How do you two feel?"

We both agreed that we felt completely fine. The boys seemed skeptical, but agreed that we'd continue. I was to go farther but within the camp borders. I decided to go to the Big House first so we slipped in and came back up in the living room where Chiron was taking a nap and snoring very loudly. I smiled and continued with the little experiment. I went outside of Hades' cabin, the dining hall, Talia's pine, and in and out of anywhere I could think of. A few minutes later, I went back to Will. I didn't know exactly where he was so I envisioned Nico and I standing next to him and once I slipped into the shadows, we were back where we had started. Once we stood in front of him, he stared hard at us.

"Both of your vitals seem normal except Laura's heartrate is a little elevated," he concluded.

"Because this is so cool!" I said excitedly. It was amazing that after being defenseless for years, I learned that I could practically teleport. I loved shadow traveling. I felt free and like I was flying. "By the way," I added, "you can see our vitals by just looking at us?"

"Yep, all thanks to dear ole dad" he said with a half-smile.

"I want to go out farther," Nico said suddenly.

"No way!" protested Will. "You're the one that didn't want to do it in the first place."

"Yeah well I want to see how far she can go."

"Absolutely not."

"It's okay, I can do it" I stated quickly. I wanted to test my limits and I also didn't want my potential half-brother to be mad at me, so I agreed.

"Fine," Will said angrily, "but _only_ in the New York area. No father."

I prepared myself and thought about where I had always wanted to visit. Nico and I started off by Niagara Falls, and then I took us to the Empire State Building (which is apparently where the gods lived), and just to touristy spots around the city. But I was tired of doing such small jumps. I wanted to check up on something, so I drifted away from New York City and shadow traveled to Buffalo instead, where my old foster family lived. I just couldn't believe that they didn't care at all for me. It was impossible. It had to be.

When we popped up, Nico immediately noticed something was off.

"Where are we? Did you do this on purpose?"

I ignored him and walked towards the street and, all the while, Nico was saying unimportant things I tuned out. I passed a light pole and noticed a piece of paper taped onto it. A girl with brown hair, freckles, green eyes and light skin looked back at me. The word that came to mind when I saw her was "average." It was my own photo staring at me. A missing person's flyer had been taped up urging people who saw me to contact the police. I moved on and walked across the street to my old home. I strolled right up to the window, so immersed in my own world that Nico's voice didn't even register. I saw my foster parents at the kitchen table, studying pieces of paper that looked to be bills. I could hear Julia and Drew, their biological children, playing on the trampoline I was never allowed on. I couldn't hear what they were saying but they looked angry. I wanted to know what they were talking about so I moved into a shadow from the house and went into the unlighted hallway. Nico had unexpectedly grabbed my arm at the last second so he came along for the ride. I focused my ears on their voices.

"Of course she had something to do with it Martha! That bitch has been trouble since the day we got her."

"At least we get to redo the garage," my foster mom said in a light voice. "You've been wanting to remodel it. So at least one good thing came of this."

"Yeah," he scoffed. "We got rid of _her_."

Anger poured out of me. I had been nothing but a silent foster child used for the tax write-off since I came here and now they were blaming me for a tree crushing part of the house. I didn't know why or how, but ice was forming on the wall next to me. I could faintly feel someone pulling at my arm. I decided I was done with my foster family. No one from the foster care system truly cared for me, so why should I care for anyone else.

I grabbed Nico's arm tightly and shadow traveled back to the Big House so quickly, I couldn't have blinked faster.I Nico off and traveled the amphitheater because no one was supposed to be there at this time of day. I sat on the top seating tier alone and just took everything in. I finally came to the conclusion that the only person who ever loved or cared about me was my mom and she had been killed by some psycho. I sat for a moment and then just cried. I cried for myself for the first time since my mother's death. I cried hard, ugly sobs that reverberated off the stone, but I didn't care. I had no one. No aunts, uncles, friends, mother, and I didn't even know who my father was. That was still technically a mystery.

I didn't know how long I had sat there and let the tears flow, but eventually, I was too exhausted to cry any more. I sat and breathed for a while and took in the scenery. I could see the lake from where I was and I watched as canoes slowly drifted across the water. It was calming to watch. I was so content in that moment that I didn't notice when someone sat down next to me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I looked beside me and saw the boy that I had abandoned at the Big House. I turned back to look at the lake.

"No. I'm fine." And I was fine. I decided that if no one was going to look after me, I was going to look after myself. I got up and started walking down the steps, hoping that Nico wouldn't follow, but of course, he did.

"You don't look fine," he called out. I ignored him and kept walking. He caught up and grabbed my shoulder, turning me to face him. "Look, I'm not going to pry, but for children of Hades, holding grudges can easily be our fatal flaw. You're here now. That life is in the past now, so you can't dwell on it. This is a new start for you. It took a talk with my dead sister to realize that myself." I took in what he had to say and nodded. "Good. Now come on, it's time for lunch."

Lunch and that afternoon were uneventful. I met the Stoll brothers again and saw the Hermes cabin, which is where I'd be staying until I was claimed. I went canoeing with a couple of Aphrodite girls; they were nice. I also ended up having a free block of time meant for writing letters, but since I had no one to write to, I just wrote poetry instead. I enjoyed writing and it was relaxing for me so it was a nice change from the morning I had had.

When it was dinner time, I met up with the Hermes cabin (which only consisted of the Stoll brothers and a girl named Eliza, another unclaimed camper) and we got our dinner and sacrificed part of it to the gods. I prayed to my father, whoever that was, though I suspected Hades, and then sat down with the rest of the cabin. Dinner was the first time I saw Chiron so when I noticed he was a centaur, I ended up staring at him for ten minutes straight. I spoke a little bit with the Stolls and Eliza but they were only concerned with how they were going to prank the Athena cabin back. After that, I picked at my food, taking a few bites of hamburger here and there, and stared off into space, not paying any attention. I only came back to my senses when the entire dining pavilion grew silent. I looked up to see what was going on and saw that everyone was looking slightly above my head. I glanced up, expecting to see a monster, but instead, a weird symbol glowed above me. It looked like a circle above a cross with a "U". I had no idea what was happening but I knew I had gotten everyone's attention. A girl across the room broke the silence.

"Oh, gods. Not another one." She sounded exasperated but I didn't know why.

Nico stood up from the same table, looking mad enough to spit fire. "Will tell your sister to shut up before she gets shadow travelled to the Underworld."

"Try me, ghost boy," she threatened.

That's when Will stepped in. "Kayla, watch it."

Chiron stomped the stone floor, demanding silence. He waited for a moment for everyone's attention to be on him, while also ignoring their rude comments, and then said, "Hail Laura Carson, daughter of Hades."

After a second of contemplation, everyone in the pavilion knelt down on one knee. For some reason, they all looked apprehensive and worried and even scared. I sat there, not knowing what to do or if I should say something like "thanks," or "fuck you Kayla." After a moment of awkward kneeling and silence, the director made another announcement.

"Dinner's over. Everyone head to the campfire for songs and s'mores lead by the Apollo cabin." Chiron seemed nonchalant and I suspected that he wanted campers to sort out their own issues and that's why he stayed out of it.

Everyone stood up, all whispering, but I could hear my name in every one of their conversations. I didn't know what I had done wrong by being claimed. I stayed seated not knowing what to think when Nico came up to me.

"Well I guess were officially siblings." He sounded casual, like I hadn't just made a scene in the dining hall.

"Why'd they act like that? Did I do something wrong?"

"I think I can answer that" Chiron said while walking towards us. "Hades hasn't always been welcome in Olympus," he explained. "So that, in turn, was rubbed off onto the children. So, they're apprehensive about children of Hades. Even the Romans at Camp Jupiter fear Pluto. People are afraid of death and they need someone to blame."

It took me a moment to comprehend everything but when I did, I was immensely irritated.

"So, I'm a freak here too?! What happened to us all being the same or whatever? Just because my dad is the god of the underworld, everyone hates me? How fair is that?"

I didn't want to hear any more excuses or explanations. I just wanted to be alone and to think of a solution to this madness. I headed to the cabins, now going to the Hades one, to think. I tended to resolve things better in silence.

When I got to the cabin, I was horrified at how morbid it was. Beds that looked like coffins and blood red sheets filled my vision. I didn't complain very long though, since I was lucky to have a bed at all. I chose one next to the wall and laid down and stared at the bunk above me. I started thinking about the memories of bullying and names used to hurt me, but I blocked them out quickly. I didn't want that to happen again so, I had to come up with a way to make these people change their minds. I thought and thought and thought but I could only come up with one solution: kill 'em with kindness. I just had to show them that their thoughts were wrong and that children of Hades aren't to be feared.

I must have been wrapped up in my thoughts for longer than I imagined because sooner than later, Nico came back, smelling like campfire. I checked the alarm clock on the nightstand next to me and saw that it was 9:15. He went and sat down on a half-made bed I assumed he had claimed for himself. I looked at him, the boy that has taken care of me since I had gotten here and wondered how almost no one could see his good side. Even though he was a little intimidating and acted like he didn't care, I knew he had a soft side, like a marshmallow.

"Have they always treated you like this," I asked him.

He sighed and waited a moment before answering. "Yeah, but it used to be worse. Hades didn't even have a cabin here until about three years ago, so I had no place to go. Children of Hades weren't welcome here, but that changed when Percy told the gods to claim all of their children by 13 and to honor all of the gods, major and minor, so-"

"Wait," I cut off, "the gods have to claim their children by thirteen? But I turned thirteen months ago and just got here yesterday."

Nico cursed to himself in some foreign language. He stared at the wall for a minute before speaking.

"Yeah. Hades was supposed to tell the camp that you existed and we were supposed to come get you, but for some reason, he didn't. We didn't know about you until a week ago."

"Then how did you find out, since dead-beat dad of the year- no pun intended- didn't tell anyone."

He sighed again heavily and looked like he was choosing his words carefully. "Hecate told us about an "unknown child of death" and pointed us in the right direction. We went through a couple dozen kids, we have a file of potential demi-gods in the United States, but none of them met the criteria until we saw your file. Multiple school expulsions, moving from home to home, trouble following you, plus that fact that you have ADHD said that you were the "unknown" camper. We were going to send a satyr this morning to go get you, but I went early instead."

"But why? It was only like a twelve-hour difference." I was concerned and touched at the same time. I knew if he hadn't of come when he did, I probably would have been taken by that giant.

"I don't know," he said. "I just had a bad feeling and figured I should go. I take my family very seriously since losing Bianca. I couldn't let that happen to another sister. That's why I saved Hazel from Asphodel."

I didn't know what to do, so I said, "thank you."

"We need to talk," he continued. He turned in his bed to face me and he looked very serious. "You know how Hecate told us about you?" I nodded. "Well she told us because you're supposed to go on a quest with me and Hazel."

"A quest? But why? I just got here. I don't even know how to use my stupid sword!" I started to panic, knowing that I wasn't ready for any sort of dangerous task.

"You'll learn," he insisted. "Hecate told Hazel about this quest. A few years ago, Circe's island was destroyed by pirates and since Hecate is her mother and didn't come to help, she's trying to overthrow her. I think Circe had something to do with our dad not claiming you, but I'm not entirely sure."

"How do you know that I'm the one supposed to go? There's hundreds of other demigods, right? Why can't they go? I'm sure they're better trained and can fight Circe! Plus, I'm sure there are other children of Hades that you just haven't found yet." I tried to convince Nico that I was the wrong demigod, but the more I spoke, the more I felt that what he said was true.

"Hecate told us that 'three children of the underworld' are supposed to go, and it's only me, you, and Hazel. There's no one else because Hades doesn't have very many kids. She wants us to take down Circe to make sure she won't overthrow her."

I remembered learning about the sorceress Circe in school and if what I had learned was correct, she would be almost impossible to fight.

I started thinking about what had happened in the past 24 hours and was immediately overwhelmed. Coming to terms that I was a demigod, my dad was Hades, I had two siblings, no one at camp liked me, and that I was completely alone terrified me. I didn't have any way to cope, so instead, for the second time that day, I cried. It was different from earlier though. These were soft silent sobs of stress. I sat there for a few minutes, absorbed in my own world, but I quickly noticed that Nico had started singing to himself. I stopped crying for a moment to listen to the song and try to identify it but it was in a foreign language. He just sat there, reading a book, and singing a little song. His voice was quiet but it was beautiful too. I hadn't expected Nico to be a great singer but I was pleasantly surprised.

It was a while before I realized I had stopped crying completely because I was concentrating so hard on listening to the melody. Once Nico noticed my tears had stopped, he ceased the humming.

"I'm scared" I said, breaking the silence. My face was itchy from the dried tears.

"Hazel and I helped defeat the earth goddess a few months ago," he said. "We can all take down some stupid sorceress."

I said "yeah" unconvincingly and my new half-brother went back to reading a book called _Jane Eyre._

"By the way," he said, "if you tell anyone about the singing, I'll personally send you to the underworld."

He sounded serious but I knew he was only joking.

"Hey, Nico." He pulled the book away from his eyes and looked at me. "Thanks." He looked at me a moment more before going back to his book.

After that, I went to change into my pajamas and finally got in bed. Though morbid, the mattress was comfortable and before I knew it, I was asleep.

We were to leave for New Rome on Tuesday, which was five days away. I needed at least a basic understanding of sword fighting so I practiced every morning with Chiron and an hour before lunch, I'd practice shadow traveling, making sure that it wasn't effecting my body. I did have to admit one day that it was starting to wear me out just slightly for some odd reason, since I had been fine up until then, but we still weren't sure why it affected Nico so much worse. We guess that it was because he was from a different time period, so whatever was in the shadows was trying to keep him there, which terrified me.

In the afternoons, I would practice Greek with an Athena boy named Malcolm who was second in command of the Athena cabin. He was friendly but hesitant to talk to me so I was as nice as possible and after a few days, he seemed to warm up to me. Greek lessons is also where I learned that Will and Nico were going out, but that didn't surprise me. The way they bickered, you'd think they were an old married couple.

The more I shadow travelled, the more exhausted I got, which worried Nico. He insisted that on Tuesday that we not practice so I could save up my strength for the next morning. Instead, we got things ready for our quest. Ambrosia and nectar was packed along with extra clothes, food, sleeping bags, and some money, both mortal and non-mortal. Nico brought along a few books and I decided to take my writing journal so I'd have something to do during our spare time. I didn't think we'd have any, but I brought it just in case. The harpies also made some cookies to bring to the Roman praetors to say that we missed them. After that, the day went by as normal.

At dinner, Nico and I sat together at the Hades table talking about the quest and possible dangers like monsters and speculated why Hades would keep me a secret. We didn't come up with any possible solutions.

Once dinner was over, everyone walked to the amphitheater for the nightly sing along with the Apollo cabin. I made an effort to move around and sing with everyone to make sure they knew I wasn't a threat and that they shouldn't be afraid of me. Whenever I moved to a new area, the fire would flicker black for a second, indicating that they were scared, but it quickly went away when I joked around and made friends with everyone. The only person who didn't seem to like me very much was an Ares kid named Sherman. I think he thought that I was annoying, but I ignored him and moved on.

By the end of the night, I was definitely friends with the Aphrodite girls and they offered to give me a few extra items of clothes, which I took gratefully, and Kayla had come to me and apologized. I forgave her and she actually turned out to be pretty cool. She wanted to go to the Olympics for archery. I asked her if that was considered cheating since she was a daughter of Apollo but she shrugged and said she didn't know.

That night, I had trouble getting to sleep, which I knew was bad since I would be shadow traveling a lot the next few days. I flipped and rolled so many times that Nico eventually told me to shut up and go to sleep. I stuck my tongue out at him and closed my eyes but still couldn't manage to find unconsciousness. Eventually, Nico sighed, got up and walked over to my bed. I was about to ask him what he was doing when he placed a finger on my forehead. My eyes started to droop and I asked what he had done but he only smirked. Before I could do anything else, I was in a dead sleep.

When I woke up at seven the next morning to the sound of my alarm clock, I was so groggy, I could barely sit up. I looked at Nico angrily, knowing he did this to me.

"Gods, Nico, what did you do," I slurred.

He shrugged back at me. "Just helped you sleep."

"Well thanks," I said sarcastically. "Now I feel great." While I put off an annoyed tone, I was actually somewhat grateful. Who knows how long I would have been up for if he hadn't of helped.

I walked to the bathroom with a change of clothes and I rinsed off my face, hoping that would help wake me up, and it did, barely. At breakfast, Nico, Will, Kayla, and I sat together, which I learned was okay during breakfast but you were supposed to sit with your cabin at dinner. Nico still seemed miffed at Kayla, but she seemed to ignore him while we talked about menial things. No one spoke about the quest but we all knew that after breakfast, we'd be leaving for New Rome. I was extremely nervous still but I trusted Nico and Hazel, seeing that they had saved all of humanity not four months earlier.

After eating, as other campers left for their morning activities, some wishing up good luck, Will and Nico said their goodbyes. Will readjusted his coat multiple times and made sure we had enough supplies. Nico called him a pest and told him to get lost, but I knew that he secretly enjoyed being fussed over. Will left after Mr. Death told him to get lost and then it was my time to shine. We had decided to go in chunks so I wouldn't be worn out so quickly.

Since it was December and the sun came up later, it wasn't hard to find shadows to travel in that early in the morning. I checked our bags one last time, making sure everything was there and then we walked behind the dining pavilion and I took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for our first stop which was Des Moines, Iowa. I grabbed Nico's hand and looked at him for confirmation that he was ready. He nodded and then I concentrated on the vision of us standing in Des Moines, hand in hand like we were then. We slipped into the shadows and a moment later, we popped up in an alley between two buildings where the shadows were densest. We walked into the street and I picked up a discarded newspaper off the sidewalk. It was _The Des Moines Register_ meaning that I had shadow travelled to the correct place.

I looked around the street to get a sense of where we were. A little café was just opening up beside us and cars were driving by, going to work and there were a few clothing stores down the street. It seemed like a good place to window shop, but that's not what we were there to do. I was supposed to rest until lunch and then we'd go to Salt Lake City in Utah. I was still thinking when Nico spoke, causing me to miss his question.

"I'm sorry, say that again."

"Where do you want to go? I can keep look out while you nap if you want."

"Yeah," I said, stifling a yawn, "that'd be nice."

If I was honest, I was still exhausted from whatever Nico had done the night before, but I wasn't going to tell him that. Instead, I looked for a place I could sleep and found a nice park across the street where a perfect looking bench stood, right in the warm sun. I practically floated across the street to my temporary bed. I curled up on it, giving Nico some room to sit at the end and as soon as I closed my eyes, sleep took me.

I awoke with a start. I jackknifed up and was breathing hard. Sweat was also starting to form on my forehead and I looked around crazily, but found nothing.

"What," Nico asked, now on alert mode with his hand near his sword. "What is it?"

"I-I don't know," I panted. I rubbed my hands on my face to try to calm myself down but too much adrenaline was coursing through my system. Nico seemed to calm down slightly realizing there was no real threat.

"It was probably a bad dream," he explained. "Demigods get them a lot, especially near or during a quest and sometimes they don't remember them."

"Really? That's absolutely terrible." I was beginning to slowly catch my breath and calm down. "What time is it?"

Nico looked at his watch. "10:24."

I stood up and grabbed my bag. "Let's go ahead and go. I want to get moving."

"Uh, no," he said coolly. "You need to rest more so you can sit your butt back down. Will would kill me if I let you shadow travel again that quickly." He pulled his book out of his bag and started reading. I stood there, dumbfounded, until he looked up and glared at me until I sat down.

For the next hour and a half, I wrote in my journal, dozed a little, and paced, but I mostly just sat and stared at everyone passing through the park. I made up a little backstory for each of them. Nico just sat there and read the entire time, barely moving except to flip a page. When noon rolled around, we sat and ate sandwiches but I only picked at mine, saving most of it for later. When we were done, we started walking back to the alley where we had originally come from since it was still shrouded in darkness. I took Nico's hand again and now concentrated on us in Salt Lake City. We slipped into the shadows and came back up behind a random building. I shivered from the cold of the travel and because I still wasn't used to the screams of the dead. I stood there a moment, something feeling off, but I couldn't place my finger on it. I brushed it off and attributed it to being tired from shadow travelling so far.

We walked to the front of the building and I couldn't believe my eyes. The building turned out to be City Hall but it wasn't for Salt Lake City. It was for a place called Ogden. I looked at Nico but he just stared at the building, looking confused and slightly worried.

"Nico, I-" I started but he began walking into City Hall. I waited while he went inside and after a minute, he came back out with a tourist brochure he was looking over thoroughly.

"It's fine," he said after another moment of reading. "We're only about forty miles away from Salt Lake City."

"Sorry. I probably wasn't concentrating hard enough." I hugged my jacket closer for warmth. "I'll do better next time."

"It's fine. You want something to drink?" he asked, pointing to a coffee shop down the street.

"Most definitely."

As we walked towards the shop, I watched as my breath escaped my lips creating intricate patterns in the air. When we went inside, the air was warm and smelled like fresh coffee beans. It was delightful.

I found us a seat by the window while Nico went to get two teas since coffee would make us tired because of the ADHD. He drank his plain while I sweetened mine with sugar. When it was just right, I took small sips, my body relishing the warmth. We sat in silence, him reading and me watching the people passing by, and drank our teas. It was quiet and peaceful and nice holiday music played from the speakers.

After a while, my eyelids started to droop from the calmness of the shop. I vaguely heard Nico telling me to go to sleep before I laid my head on my arms and started to doze.

I remembered my dream the next time. I was standing in a dark cave with stalagmites hanging from the ceiling, threatening to come crashing down. I looked in front of me and could only see more darkness. I walked forward, something luring me deeper inside. Before then, silence had reigned, but a laugh suddenly pierced the air. It was a menacing, evil laugh, not too far away.

"Don't worry, Mom, I'll be ready for them."

That's when I woke up to the feeling of my arm being pulled out of socket. I cried out in pain as I crashed into a neighboring table in the coffee shop. I looked and saw that Nico had an iron grip on my arm. I put together that he had pulled me out of my chair so quickly that we collided with the table beside us. But why? That's when I noticed the monster.

It was a giant half-man, half-bull creature with curling horns and a bull ring in its snout. Since I had paid attention during mythology class, I easily identified it as the Minotaur. He had crashed through the window right where we had been only seconds earlier. It snorted and started to charge directly at us. Nico grabbed me forcefully and dragged me outside, barely dodging the creature. Instead, of flattening us, it plowed right through the wall.

"Let me do the work," Nico said quickly while unsheathing his sword.

I was about to attempt to protest but the Minotaur had recovered quickly and broke through the wall directly in front of us. It looked right into my eyes and he got his message across: he was after me. I thought that since I had trained for the past few days, I would be ready for a real-life situation, but I was terribly wrong. My legs shook and I was frozen in fear. It was only when the monster charged at me that I jumped out of the way at the last second.

"Gods Laura," Nico said as he helped me to my feet. "Just stay next to me."

We ran into the park next to the coffee shop to have more room to maneuver and so it wouldn't destroy as many things. We turned around to face the oncoming danger and I had managed to muster up enough courage to summon my sword but I still stood behind Nico. 'Fake it until you make it' I kept repeating to myself like a mantra. As we waited for the monster, I kept thinking about how many times Nico had saved me over the past week and I felt guilty. I didn't want to be someone who always relied on other people saving her and not pull her share of the work. That's why when the Minotaur found us, I ran straight at it.

"Laura, what are you doing?" I heard Nico scream.

"Being an absolute idiot," I replied to myself.

I knew what _my_ plan was but whether or not the monster and Nico realized it too was a mystery. The monster and I closed the distance quickly and right when I was about to get trampled, I rolled out of the way, causing it to race past me. I got up, knowing my time was short, and summoned my sword. As the monster was distracted looking for me, I swiped at the back of its left leg as hard as I could. It roared in pain and I tried to put as much distance in between us. As it turned around, looking for the culprit of its wound, Nico took his shot just as I had hoped. When the Minotaur turned away from him, Nico ran up and stabbed him directly in the back. When it didn't die the first time, he struck again and it fell to its knees. As I watched the Minotaur howl in anguish, the strangest thing happened; it began to turn into a yellow dust. The powder swirled and vanished in the wind a few moments later and Nico and I were left with only the memory of the Minotaur.

I threw my sword on the ground, letting it disappear, and placed my hands on my knees to try and catch my breath. My hands were shaking from the adrenaline and my breath was shaky. Nico sheathed his sword and quickly stalked over to me.

"What were you thinking?" he seethed.

"My duty or responsibility or something," I replied sarcastically, standing back up.

"You Just picked up a sword for the first time five days ago!"

"Yeah well you have to start fighting stuff sooner or later. And why was that thing here?"

"I'm not entirely sure" he said, not happy I changed the subject, "but it can't be a coincidence that we ended up in a wrong town that had a monster in it."

"You think Circe did this?"

"Probably." Nico looked irritated and troubled.

"Well what now?"

"Do you think you could make it to Camp Jupiter?"

I took a moment to assess my condition. I was exhausted but I knew I could make it, if only barely. I grabbed the sandwich I hadn't finished earlier and crammed it in my mouth, washing it down with some water.

"Let's go" I said while trying to get peanut better from the roof of my mouth.

We walked back to the dark alleyway and I grabbed Nico's hand. I took a deep breath and put all of my concentration and energy into traveling to New Rome. It took me a few extra moments to concentrate but when I was ready, I slipped us into the shadows. The cold and darkness enveloped us and a moment later, we came up in an odd place.

We stood in the median of a busy highway with cars hurtling past us and straight ahead was a tunnel protected by two guards. I took a step forward but couldn't do it; I was too drained. Shadow traveling across the entirety of the United States _and_ fighting a deadly monster in only a few hours was just too much for me to handle. I put my hand on Nico's shoulder and looked at him, but he looked odd, like he was in a kaleidoscope. I looked forward and tried to take another steep but my legs gave out, causing me to fall. I blinked a few times but couldn't escape the kaleidoscope vision.

"Are you guys just going to stand there and watch?" I heard Nico scream at the guards.

I felt someone put me on their back and they started jogging towards the door. We went through the tunnel and it eventually opened up to a path that was surrounded by grass. Everything after that was a blur. I saw buildings and a river and some campers and some people yelled at each other but I couldn't pinpoint details about anything. By the time we got to what I assumed was the infirmary, I was already unconscious on the back of our armored escort.

Daylight filtered in through a window close by. I opened my eyes slowly and looked around cautiously, not remembering what had happened. The first thing I noticed was Nico whispering with a girl in the far corner of the room. She had brown hair and skin **.** We had the same body type and she looked to be about my age. They seemed to be having an intense conversation which I could only pick up some words and phrases like "Circe" and "not smart" and "that was dumb."

I sat up only to find my head pounding from a headache and my stomach growled angrily, demanding food. When I moved, the two in the corner noticed I was awake and came over quickly.

"Hey, how are you feeling," the mystery girl asked. "I'm Hazel by the way."

I looked at the girl in awe. She was so small and friendly looking but just a few months ago, she was one of the seven demigods to save the world. I just couldn't wrap my head around it. She was just a normal looking girl.

I decided not to beat around the bush. "I'm Laura," I said, "and I'm hungry and my head really hurts."

Hazel laughed. "Well breakfast ended about half an hour ago but I have to find Reyna and Frank so we can talk about the quest and I'll get you something to eat."

"Thank you," I said gratefully.

She smiled at me again and then turned to Nico. She squeezed his arm lovingly and then left. Though I had just met Hazel, I knew that we'd get along well for the sheer fact that I feel like she could be friends with anyone. Nico sat down in the chair next to the bed I was in and rummaged around in his bag. He pulled out a bottle of Advil and gave me two. I used the water next to me to wash it down and then I sighed, closed my eyes, and leaned back on the pillow. Nico kicked his feet up on the end of the bed and pulled out _Jane Eyre._

"What now," I asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Well Hazel said that Frank and Reyna had some information but didn't want to talk about it without them and while you were asleep."

"I'm sorry."

"For what," he asked, putting his book down.

"Passing out." I felt guilty for not being strong enough to stay conscious. It was odd though because it seemed like the more I shadow traveled, the more it drained me and that hadn't happened at first. I didn't have an explanation.

"Oh shut up," he said. I looked at him, shocked but he just started reading again. "It wasn't your fault so don't start getting sad and distracted." He kicked my foot gently to let me know he wasn't actually angry but that he _did_ mean what he said. "We have a sorceress to kill."

The silence was peaceful and I started to doze to the sound of turning book pages and activities in the distance. The sun was warm on my body and I felt that it wouldn't be this serene for a while.

As I was starting to fall into an actual sleep, I heard footstep approaching. I opened my eyes and saw three people coming in. One was Hazel and I assumed that the others were Frank and Reyna. Frank was a larger boy with Asian eyes and Reyna had long, dark hair and brown colored skin. They both wore dark purple capes that billowed behind them like flags of authority. I saw that Hazel and Frank were holding hands. They were an awkward looking couple, but cute nonetheless. They all strolled over to where we were, and then sat down on the bed adjacent to mine. Reyna was the first to speak.

"I'm glad you're feeling better and now that everyone's here, we can talk about the quest." Reyna had a very commanding voice that demanded obedience. I could see how she was one of the Roman leaders. "Frank, tell them what you found."

He cleared his throat awkwardly, obviously nervous about being put on the spot. "Well, since the battle last August, we have been trying to learn more about Greek history. We've been reading up on Circe because of the quest and it turns out that she has three sons she gave immortality to; Ardeas, Latinus, and Telegonus."

"Yeah, so," Nico interrupted. "We already knew that."

"But did you know," Reyna picked up, "that she's been known to use them for her dirty work?"

"So, you think her sons are involved," I asked.

"Yes," Hazel continued. "I've been having dreams about a man in the Appalachian Mountains."

"I've had one about a man in a cave talking to his mother" I added nervously.

"And I've been dreaming about someone on top of Mount Rushmore" Nico said, obviously unhappy. "But how did you guys figure this out when we're the Greeks?"

"When we were going through Octavian's things after the battle, we found some stolen Greek scrolls, but we don't know how he got them," Reyna said, sounding irritated with the whole ordeal.

Frank spoke next. "We Iris messaged Chiron asking if we could borrow them for a few months and he agreed. That's when we found out."

Everyone stayed silent, taking in all of the new information. Circe's children were involved and seemed to be in different points of the United States. I figured someone had to ask, so I did.

"What's the plan now?"

"Well," Hazel started, "since the most definite answer we have is Mount Rushmore, we should probably start there."

"Sounds good to me," I said.

Nico objected instantly. "I don't want you shadow travelling yet. Will would kill me if he knew I let you go again so soon _and_ that this happened in the first place."

"Yeah, I've seen what too much shadow travelling can do to someone," Frank said. "It's not pretty."

"Try protecting him for almost a week" Reyna retorted, nudging Nico with her hip. It was fun to watch everyone joke around so easily, but it did make me feel a little out of place, since everyone was already so comfortable with each other and I was new.

"Ha-ha-ha" Nico said sarcastically. "Make fun of the guy that almost had his essence dissolved."

"Well when are we leaving then? I feel better," I insisted. "I can't imagine that we have all the time in the world to stop Circe."

"We'll leave after lunch," Nico decided. "You can chill out and meet Hazel more and I can get reacquainted with the Romans. Sound good?" Everyone agreed. "Excellent."

Frank, Rayna, and Nico stood and left, leaving Hazel and I alone. She pulled out a breakfast sandwich from her bag and gave it to me. I thanked her and took it eagerly.

"So where are you from," I asked, mouth full of egg and bacon.

"New Orleans, but I haven't been there for some time."

"Really?" I hesitated, wondering if it was appropriate to talk about but figured if we were siblings that we'd have to talk about it at some point. "Because of what happened?"

"Yeah, but I'm going to go again someday. I'd love to see it in the 21st century. I'm sure it's even better then when I left it." I expected Hazel to sound sad or start sobbing but she seemed honestly happy and excited about seeing it again.

"Do you not feel weird or out touch after coming back?"

"I was for a while but then I realized that I was brought back for a reason and that this was a fresh start."

"That's awesome." I thoroughly envied that Hazel was able to rebound so quickly and have the most positive outlook about her situation. She blushed and waved me off.

"Enough about me. Tell me about yourself."

I sat for a second, not really knowing what to say. "Well I'm just average" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I moved from foster home to foster home, got kicked out of a few schools, fought a few monsters, and now I'm here." I figured I didn't need to go on some sad rambling of my life, after all, I was just another demigod.

"Well what kind of stuff can you do? Are you like Nico?"

"My bone summoning isn't as good as his but my shadow traveling is. I just need a nap afterwards and I think he has something he can do with sleep, but I haven't tried that yet, and sometimes, it gets really cold when I'm mad. But that's about it. What about you? I learned about the differences between the god's Greek and Roman counterparts so I imagine that you're powers are different."

"I can summon metals and jewels and I'm really good underground. I can control the Mist too, but I got that from my mom."

"What does that mean?" I had learned about the Mist and what its effects were but I didn't know what it meant to control it.

"Pretty much, I can make people see things that aren't there." I could tell that this was a big deal and she was being modest.

"It kind of sounds like magic," I noted.

"Yeah it does." We both started laughing.

For the next hour, Hazel and I talked about anything and everything from boys to gossip about girls at camp and I even caught her up on some of today's fashion trends. By the time Nico came back, Hazel and I had made fast friends and were rolling with laughter, tears stinging our eyes.

"There's about an hour until lunch," he said. "Hazel go spend time with Frank before we leave."

She rolled her eyes but got up to go. She showed me a smile before going out the door and Nico turned to go too but I called out to him.

"Where are you going?"

"Making sure we have everything together so we can leave. Take a nap." And then he left too.

I huffed and stuck my tongue out at him. I wasn't really tired but I decided some more sleep couldn't hurt. I rolled over and closed my eyes, relishing the warm sun on my cold skin. I was nervous but my body determined that sleep was more important than worrying about some quest, so I fell into a fitful sleep.

I was standing in the cave with my back up against the cold wall. I was hiding in the shadows, away from the torchlight, but I didn't know why. Footsteps approached and I pushed up on the wall more in hopes that I wouldn't be seen. A man with greasy black hair walked straight past me and he rounded a corner in the cave. I followed behind to see where he was going and I saw him sit on a throne made of what looked to be all sorts of bones. He picked up a mirror that was beside his chair and looked into it. After a moment, I heard a voice that seemed to be coming from the mirror itself since the man wasn't moving his lips and because it was a woman's voice. Though she sounded kind and innocent, I instinctively knew that that man was talking to Circe.

"How's it coming along sweetheart? Did they come out okay?" Her voice was so sweet sounding, it made me sick.

"Yeah. It took me a couple of tries but I eventually got them working." Though the man's tone was completely different, being guttural and low, he sounded just as dangerous as his mother. "They should be-"

And at that moment, that's when my foot decided to slip, causing a rock to break loose and echo loudly throughout the cave. I stood stock still, praying to Hades that he'd ignore it, but Hades hadn't done me any favors recently, so why start now?

"What was that," Circe asked through the mirror.

"I don't know but I'll call you back."

He put the mirror down and stood to his full height of over six feet. He started lumbering over to where I was and I had to make a decision: stay there and hope he wouldn't see me in the shadows or run for it. In my body's fight or flight response, flight won out. I scrambled away, not caring about the noise I made. I was only concerned about getting away fast enough. I sprinted down the path but I didn't know where I was going, so when faced with forks in the cavern, I chose one at random and prayed that it wasn't a dead end. I could hear the evil laughter of the man behind me. It was like I was a rat in his maze and he was in total control. It was absolutely terrifying and tears sprang from my eyes as I ran as fast and as hard I could. But as my luck would have it, my left foot caught on a rock and I went down. I tried to catch myself but I deeply sliced my arm instead on a sharp rock. I could feel the blood starting to soak my jacket as I felt a malicious presence behind me.

I was paralyzed with fear but turned around anyway. The man was not ten feet away and though I had been running for at least five minutes straight, he didn't look winded at all. He only laughed.

"I see I have an intruder."

"Who are you," I asked, trying to sound brave. It reminded me of the night Nico had broken into my garage and I tried to stand up for myself, but only this time, I was ten times more scared.

He chuckled at my sad attempt of courage. "You'll find out soon enough."

The man pulled out a staff made of bones that I hadn't noticed before. I tried every one of my abilities but nothing worked, not even my sword. He took the staff and tapped it three times on the cave floor while muttering something I couldn't hear. A bright green light started to glow from the core of the weapon. It grew brighter and brighter until a brilliant green beam of light shot towards me. I screamed bloody murder as my skin felt like it was melting off my bones. The pain was so intense that it was completely indescribable. I blacked out.

I could hear my name being called, but only faintly. The only thing that truly noticed was the darkness. It was pitch-black, wherever I was. I heard my name again, but louder. My throat felt like sandpaper. Someone was yelling and I opened my eyes.

When I woke up, I was still screaming at the top of my lungs and tears were falling freely. I immediately stopped and grabbed my arm looking for blood and I found it. My arm seared with pain and was dripping with blood from a fresh cut, like I had gotten it from my dream.

I covered my arm with my hand and stood quickly, trying to find something to stop it, but I stumbled over a chair. Tears were still falling down my face when I heard footsteps running towards the infirmary. Nico entered, looking winded from his run. He saw the scene in front of him and his eyes widened.

"Gods, Laura, what happened," he asked as he ran towards me. The blood was starting to drip from my hand and onto the floor. My sock started to get wet. I was still crying as he grabbed the nearest towel and packed it on my wound. "What happened," he asked again, sounding deathly serious.

I tried to tell him about the dream but it came out as incoherent babbling mixed with sobbing. He rushed to his bag and grabbed a piece of ambrosia. Nico ran back over and put it into my mouth. The taste of my mother's French toast immediately calmed me and I could feel heat racing to my arm, healing the damage. When I pulled the towel away, my arm was caked with blood, but my wound was healed, though there was a lot of tenderness. I was staring at my arm when I heard more footsteps approaching. A second later, Hazel appeared in the doorway, carrying a plate of food wrapped in saran wrap. She stood there a moment, and I assumed she was trying to figure out where the blood had come from, and when she put it together, she rushed over to us.

"Laura, what happened?" Her voice was so nice and buttery sounding that it calmed me even more.

I sighed and sat on the nearest bed, still shaking and holding my arm. Hazel sat next to me and held my hand while Nico sat down on the bed in front of us. I told them, in detail, about the dream and how real it had seemed. I got to the part where I fell and tore up my arm and Nico's face looked like one of thought and concentration. When I was finished, my tears had dried and my breaths were even. I felt extremely grateful I had my new siblings to confide in and who would understand my problems.

"This must be an ability of yours," Nico said. "Sometimes we can have more powers over our dreams than others. I can talk to others through dreams and yours seem to be super realistic and you can be physically put in that location."

"How convenient for me," I said sarcastically.

"I don't know much about it though but I'll go Iris message Clovis, he could be helpful."

"And I'll help clean up in here," Hazel added. The two nodded to each other and then Nico left. "Come on," she said. "Let's get you cleaned up."

I let her lead me over to the sink where I washed the blood off my arm and hands while Hazel cleaned up the room. Once I was done, I went over to help her, making sure the blood drips were cleaned off the floor. She threw the last dirty thing into a nearby basket.

"I think we're done," she said cheerily.

"Thank you," I said as I grabbed the food from the table. I opened the wrap and dug in. "I really need to get used to this demigod business."

"It's hard for any newbie but we have it a lot worse since were children of one of the big three. We tend to be more powerful than the others and monsters target us more."

"I'll get used to it," I said more to myself than to Hazel.

"I'm sure you will," she said. She pulled some cards out of her backpack. "Want to play Uno while we wait for Dr. Underworld? I just learned how to play, but I'm pretty good."

"I'd love to," I said with a smile.

Hazel was the first real friend and sibling I had had in years and was so happy to have someone I could come to with my problems. Though we had just met earlier that day, I felt like I could confide in Hazel like we had known each other our whole lives; it was just an automatic _click_.

When I made Hazel "draw +4" for the third time, Nico walked in looking irritated.

"What'd you find out big brother," Hazel asked.

"That Clovis is completely useless. He just told me there's nothing we can do." He looked angrily at his shoes. "There'll be nothing he can do when I kick his-"

"Nico! Don't say those kinds of things," she exclaimed as she started fanning herself with the cards in her hand.

I laughed at the two of them and then handed my cards back to Hazel to put up seeing that it was time to go. We checked to make sure we had everything and then grabbed our bags.

"Well I guess I'll lead the way," I said. "I'm ready to get out of here."

"Agreed," Nico responded.

We walked outside and I looked for an acceptable shadow to travel in at noon. It was really weird walking around New Rome with Romans staring at you, but eventually I found a cluster of trees that shaded the ground fairly well. Once we were there, we all held hands and stood in a small triangle.

"We've decided on Boise, Idaho first," Hazel informed me.

I nodded and started concentrating on us in Boise. I closed my eyes and felt the darkness wash over me. A split-second later, we came out, but in an odd place. The three of us were somehow stuffed into a bathroom stall. The lights suddenly flipped on because they apparently were motion censored and our faces were inches away from each other. We groaned in protest.

"Why in here?" Hazel asked.

"Because it was the darkest place in the area," I said as I undid the bathroom stall latch. We spilled out into the sink area and stretched our muscles from the tightness. "I'll make sure to be more specific next time."

"Well let's hope we're in the right place."

Nico led us through the bathroom door and into the main store area. It turned out to be a Walgreens in Boise, so I was excited we landed in the correct place. We walked out onto the street with the cold December air chilling our faces.

"Where should we go?" I asked as I pulled my jacket tighter.

"A coffee shop?" Hazel said pleasantly.

Nico and I both looked at each other, trying to gauge each other's reactions. We seemed to come to the conclusion that it'd be okay.

"Sounds okay to me. It's always warm in there and easy to sleep," I said while yawning.

We walked down the street, keeping our eyes peeled for a café and after a few minutes, we found one on the corner of a busy street, which I liked because I enjoyed watching traffic and the passing people.

We walked inside and ordered hot chocolates and teas to warm ourselves. We found a seat near the window and each did our own thing. Nico read, Hazel played solitaire, and I watched the street. It only took minutes for the tea, ambiance, and warmth of the shop to take control. My eyes dropped and quickly after dozing, I was fully asleep.

My dreams were a montage of darkness, dampness, and evil laughter. I was just grateful I didn't have a dream like that morning. When I woke up, the sun was dropping in the sky and Nico and Hazel were speaking softly. I sat up and stretched, stiff from being in the same position for too long. I grabbed a sandwich out of my bag and ate it quickly. I didn't want to have to stay in the coffee shop longer than I head to because of the last monster attack.

"Are you guys ready?" I asked while closing my backpack.

"Yeah but something feels off," Nico said.

Hazel looked at him with a worried look. "What do you mean?"

"They have to know we're coming since one of Circe's sons saw Laura in her dream and they can obviously communicate with each other, so why aren't they trying to stop us?"

The three of us looked at each other with troubled expressions.

"Well," she said, "since we're ready to go, let's not wait around to find out why."

"Yeah," I added.

We walked back into the now evening air. Since the sun went down around five o'clock and it was seven, it was much easier to find a proper shadow. When I saw one beside a convenience store, we huddled together, ready for the trip.

"Go to the very top of Mount Rushmore," Nico instructed. "That's where I've seen him."

I nodded and concentrated on my instructions. Closing my eyes, I pulled the three of us into the darkness. When we came back up, we were on the very top of the monument, which I knew would get us in trouble if we were caught. We were only ten feet away from the edge with no railing and a nasty storm was crackling above us. It hadn't started to rain yet but the wind blew and lightning flashed across the sky. I looked over the edge and saw how incredibly far down we were. I saw a picnic table that looked like it was made for ants.

I looked around, trying to find something in the fading darkness, but came up empty handed. Nico took a step forward, I assumed to try and find him. We all pulled our weapons, mine appearing from thin air, and began to scout out the terrain. We spread out, but stayed close enough to help if something happened. I was absolutely terrified but I knew after what had happened earlier that I had to be brave. I repeated my saying "fake it 'til you make it."

Lightning caused the sky to light up and thunder boomed loudly. I walked parallel to the edge of the monument and repeated my mantra to myself. Sweat was forming on the palm of my hand where I gripped my sword tightly and I could feel the pressure of the approaching storm as it became stronger. I felt a presence to my right so I looked up and saw Hazel walking towards me.

"You find anything?" I asked her.

She didn't answer though. She kept walking towards me and when she was about five feet away, she drew her spatha. She pointed it at me and when I looked into her eyes, there was no recognition, only a blankness in her golden irises.

I laughed nervously, thinking that this was a joke she was playing. "What are you doing Hazel?"

"Whatever I tell her to do," a voice called out. It was a male's but was definitely not Nico's.

The man that spoke walked forward, out of the shadows of the clouds. He was tall and had brown hair with dark eyes. His jeans and collared shirt looked too perfect and his smile was wide. He oozed confidence, like a car salesman who has won employee of the month three times in a row.

"Who are you?" I asked while repeating my montra in my head. I forced bravery into my voice and pushed out the thoughts of everything that could go wrong. I wondered where Nico was but the thunder boomed so loud and so frequently that I wasn't surprised that he couldn't hear us.

"Ardeas," he said with a smug smile and a bow. "One of Circe's sons, but you already know that."

"So, you _are_ working for your mom," I said in an accusatory tone. I turned to Hazel next. "What are you doing? Why are you pointing that thing at me?"

Ardeas answered for her. "Because I control her now." He pulled out a vile of blue liquid and shook it around. His smile was crooked and wicked looking.

"What've you done?" He had done something to Hazel, the sister I had just met and that made me angry. Frost began forming around my feet. "Fix her," I demanded.

He just stood there and smiled, watching for my next move; I wasn't going to keep him waiting. I slipped into the shadows and popped up behind him. I raised my arm to swing my sword at him but he was quicker than me. I didn't know how, but he moved fast enough to be a blur and I couldn't track his movements. He punched me in the stomach and I fell to my knees, gasping for breath as I dropped my sword.

As I was kneeling on the ground, I heard Ardeas snap his fingers. Suddenly, the Earth started moving around and engulfed me, and I was instantly in a cast made from the ground made by Hazel herself. The only thing left exposed was my head and my right forearm, for some reason.

I took a second to breathe and concentrate to prepare to shadow travel, but before I could do anything, Circe's son practically teleported over and grabbed my upturned wrist with enough force to snap me out of my focus. I cried out in pain.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said threateningly. He sounded just like a movie villain but this was reality and no superhero was going to come and miraculously save me. He pulled out a purple liquid that was contained in a clear flask and he opened it up. He held my wrist tight as he poured the liquid onto it. An instant burning sensation erupted where he emptied the flask. The pain was almost as bad as in my dream and I screamed out. I could feel the liquid burning my skin and I could only pray he finished quickly.

The gods seemed to be listening because the liquid ran out soon afterwards and he stood up, leaving me shaking from pain in the earthen cast Hazel had made, my tears falling silently to the ground. I tried to use my powers- anything at all- but it was useless. Whatever was in that bottle had stolen them from me.

A cold and dangerously furious voice pierced the night air. "What have you done?"

I looked up and saw Nico standing to my left. His sword was drawn and when he looked at Hazel, she didn't even seem to notice him. He stared daggers at Ardeas but he only smiled cruelly back.

"My specialty is potions, and I've only leveled the playing field. Three against one doesn't seem fair, now does it?"

Nico didn't answer, he charged at him instead. I tried to call out and warn him but it was too late. Ardeas sidestepped Nico and appeared behind him, grinning again.

"I didn't know you needed a potion to fight a fifteen-year-old," he spat.

"I don't." Ardeas snapped his fingers and Hazel rushed over to where I was and pointed her spatha at my neck. "A single slice of her throat is all it'll take to destroy you."

The next few minutes were chaotic and hard to keep up with. Ardeas sliced and hacked at Nico and he defended but didn't have the chance to do anything else. He shadow traveled a few times when he had a moment to spare but Ardeas was there a second later with his heightened speed. I could see how tired Nico was getting and I started to worry, so I began thinking of a way out of there in case we all needed to escape. The potion seemed to do its job though because I couldn't shadow travel or even summon a single bone. My hand was free though and an idea came to mind.

I opened my hand and my sword materialized in it. I couldn't move much but it was enough to work. I took the side of my sword and waked Hazel in the shin with it as hard as I could. It didn't do much, but it did break her concentration enough that the earth that was formed around me crumpled into dust. Since Ardeas hadn't given any new orders for her, she stood there like a machine, waiting for instructions. I had to make sure that he didn't notice I was out so I got onto the ground and sulked in the darkness, trying to conceal myself as much as possible. Rain started pouring and thunder boomed loudly. I could hear fighting to my right so I army crawled closer.

It was hard to see in the darkness and rain but when lightning flashed, I could see Nico trying his hardest to keep up. We made eye contact for a split-second and a plan formed between us. Nico began pushing forward so that Ardeas would reverse. As his back was to me and he got closer, I turned sideways and got on my hands and knees. A moment later, Ardeas took a step too far and tripped over me. He landed straight onto his back and looked completely stunned. Nico took those few precious seconds and held out his hand, and a giant tear formed in the ground beneath him. Before Nico opened it fully, he spoke.

"Give me the potions to fix them." His voice was cold and harsh.

"I will if you don't send me to the underworld," he said desperately. I could feel the fear rolling off him. It was such a sudden change in character, I wondered if he was baiting us.

"Deal."

Ardeas looked relieved but struggled quickly to take a yellow vile out of his pants pocket and threw it to me. I barely caught it and then looked at Nico. We had the same thought.

Circe's son started to stand up. "Oh, and by the way," Nico said, "I lied." The crack fully opened and the last thing we heard was Ardeas' screams of terror as he plunged into darkness.

As soon as the tear closed, I ran over to Hazel. She was still standing stock still with no hint of recognition in her golden eyes. When I got there, I realized I had no idea what to do with the vile. I looked at Nico.

"Do I just make her drink it?"

"I don't know! Just try something." He looked panicked and I realized he was depending on me to figure something out.

I took the cork off of it and forced Hazel's mouth opened. I poured half the potion down her throat. For a moment, nothing happened and I was worried that Ardeas tricked us but then she blinked a few times and I saw the normal Hazel come back.

"Oh thank the gods," I heard myself say. Even though it was raining and we were soaking wet, I gave her a hug and squeezed tightly.

"What happened?" she asked, confused. "I was just standing there and then…." She stopped suddenly because she couldn't remember anything after that.

"It's okay. We'll explain it later. Let's get out of here," Nico said as he looked at me.

I nodded and took the vile to drink the rest of the yellow potion. All at once, my abilities came back and I could sense the bones around me and the shadows calling my name. I quickly grabbed Hazel and Nico and thought of us standing in the covered picnic area down below that I had seen earlier and shadow traveled there.

When we came back up a second later, we all shivered from the rain and cold winter air, but luckily the picnic area had a fireplace and wood stacked high for use. Hazel and I changed into dry clothes as Nico concentrated on starting a fire and we switched places when done.

After a few minutes, we had a fire going and had our soaking wet clothes by it to dry. We pulled out our sleeping bags, huddled together for warmth, and explained to Hazel what had happened. After story time was over, Nico quickly grabbed me where Ardeas poured his potion. The area was obviously red, irritated, and deeply burned. Hazel saw and audibly gasped. He tried to gingerly touch it but it was too painful and I flinched away. He dug around in his bag and pulled out a square of ambrosia that I greedily took, hungry for any food. Once the taste of French toast hit my tongue, I could feel the warmth spreading to my wound.

"It'll still probably scar though," Hazel said sympathetically.

I shrugged it off and grabbed a sandwich out of my bag. "It's fine. Scars look cool anyway. It's like I'm earning my stripes or something."

"He'll be extremely lucky if he never sees me again," Nico mumbled. I could tell he was beating himself up over him being late to the fight even though he pretty much defeated Ardeas singlehandedly.

I put my hand on his and squeezed. "Thank you" was all I said. He seemed to get the message and squeezed back begrudgingly.

We ate in silence for the next few minutes and tried to warm up as much as possible, given our circumstances. I stared at the fire and as I was dozing off, Hazel spoke up.

"What do we do now?"

"We can head to the Appalachian Mountains tomorrow since that's way more information than some cave."

"I'll take the first watch," she said.

"But you had a rough night," I protested. "Why don't you get some sleep?"

"No, it's okay. You guys worked hard tonight. And Nico's already half dead over there," she said as she nodded towards him. His had was starting to loll to the side but he perked up at the sound of his name. Hazel and I giggled quietly.

"Go to sleep, ghost boy," I said to him.

Hazel looked at me sternly. "You too, I mean it."

I held up my hands in defeat and laid down. I heard Hazel pull out her cards and watched her from the corner of my eyes as she played herself in Solitaire. I tossed and turned but it was only around nine at night, so I wasn't tired yet. I rolled over and looked at Hazel.

"How many kids go on quests?" I asked.

She looked up from her card game and answered. "Not many actually. Some people want to go on quests really bad but only certain people get a prophecy. We have someone tell us the will of the gods and you guys have an oracle, and sometimes, like this time, the gods come directly to you."

I couldn't believe it. Why would someone want to intentionally put their lives at risk? "But why? We've almost died like three times in just the past couple of days."

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Most people want to do it to make their godly parent proud and to get recognition."

"But they pretty much don't care about us, right? That's what I've heard at least. There was a cabin where _unclaimed_ campers went and that wouldn't have changed unless that Percy guy didn't make them promise to claim their kids at thirteen, and that still didn't happen to me." I was starting to get angry at the fact that demigods would die for a practically eternal god or goddess that couldn't care less they were alive.

"That's what they teach everyone: train up and maybe one day you'll be good enough for your parent to recognize you."

"That's dumb" I protested.

"They care more than you think, you know" she said, looking straight at me. "They may act like they don't want to talk to you or don't want any part, but most truly care when their children die or something goes wrong."

"I hope so." I rolled back over and stared into the wilderness. "Hazel, I'm scared. I don't want to die." It surprised me that I had something like that come out of my mouth, but when it did, I realized it was the truth. I was thirteen. I had had a pretty shitty life so far and I wanted a chance for it to change. I felt Hazel come over and hug me deeply.

"Nothing will happen to you" she said. Was she about to cry? "We would never let you die… and if you did, Nico would just go get you." Her attempt at a joke was appreciated but it fell flat with me. She went back near the fire and I stayed facing away.

"Thank you."

I closed my eyes and after a long time of pretending to be asleep, I finally did.

I took the last shift so when Nico woke me up, I could just see the first rays of light. The fire was still going strong and Hazel was snoring slightly. As I stretched and began to wake up, Nico laid back down and quickly went back to sleep. Beside him was a new book, called _The Awakening,_ that I assume he started because he finished _Jane Eyre_ on his watch. I had no idea how he did it, but Nico was asleep before I even had the chance to stand up. That may have been a trick of his that he'd have to teach me.

I put a few more pieces of wood on the fire and pulled out my journal. Luckily, our bags hadn't gotten _that_ wet so it was safe, though slightly damp at one end. I opened it up and began writing poems about the nature that surrounded us, including the pine trees, a herd of deer, and a bobcat, as I stayed huddled up in my sleeping bag. I frustratingly rewrote the same poem five times and eventually became engulfed in the pages.

At eight-thirty, I decided that I was about time to get going so I woke up Hazel and Nico. They both looked exhausted and I'm sure I looked the same way, but we didn't have time to spare. We ate a quick breakfast of Nature Valley bars and water, packed up our things, and put out the fire. We stood at the edge of the pavilion and looked out, appreciating the wilderness.

"Where to?" I asked.

"I had a more specific dream last night," Hazel said. "Go to Damascus, Virginia. I think that's our next stop."

I nodded and walked into the tree coverage. Once I found a dark enough spot, I grabbed Hazel and Nico's hand and pulled us into the darkness. We came up under the awning of a bike rental. Directly to our right was a sign saying, "Welcome to Damascus" so I knew I had made the long journey.

Suddenly, the world around me began to spin and I became extremely dizzy. I fell to my knees as colors swam across my vision and noises sounded far away. I heard Nico calling my name while Hazel knelled down to try to help me. The last thing I remembered was Hazel saying, "it was too far."

When I woke up, I was lying in a large bed and was extremely disoriented, confused, and uneasy. I sat up and saw my siblings. Nico was asleep in a chair, looking uncomfortable and Hazel was curled up at the foot of the bed. I looked out of the window and saw the sun still in the same position as it was when I passed out, if only a little higher. I was relieved that I hadn't been asleep too long. I crawled over to Hazel and nudged her awake.

"Hey," I said quietly as her eyes opened. "Where are we?"

"Oh, gods!" she said as she jackknifed up. "Nico! Wake up." Hazel took a water bottle from beside the bed and threw it at Nico. She turned back to me as he jumped awake. "Are you okay? How do you feel?" she rushed out.

"Fine, but where are we?" I looked around at the fashionable room and quickly appreciated the comfortable bed. I hadn't slept on a genuinely comfortable bed since I was with my first foster family.

"At Harmonia's apartment," Nico said as he stretched his back. "We were lucky to find a goddess in some little biking town like this."

"Who? And what happened?"

"The goddess of harmony and right when you passed out, we had to fight off some monsters that Latinus sent. They were made from dirt though so they were easy to beat, but I think they were more of a warning than anything. We found a McDonalds that we stayed in for a while until Harmonia found us and offered to let us use her apartment while we are here."

"She showed us how to get here, let us in, and we haven't seen her since," Nico said bitterly. "I figured she at least had _some_ information, but I guess not."

"Nico, she's given us food and a place to rest. Be grateful." Hazel had a perfect "angry-mom" look that intimidated me, and by the look on his face, Nico too.

I was staying silent because something wasn't sitting right with what they had told me, and suddenly, it clicked.

"Wait… I was asleep for a whole day?" I was completely shocked and felt terrible for holding up the quest.

"I was out for like 36 hours one time," Nico shrugged.

"But that doesn't happen to me." I said, completely not convinced.

"I told you it was bound to happen."

"It's okay as long as you feel better now," Hazel said with a smile.

"I mean yeah but we need to get moving, and now."

"Not so fast, little warriors."

We all turned and saw a woman standing in a corner that had been empty a moment before. She was beautiful and had long blonde hair and stunning green eyes. She looked kind but also like she could easily slit your throat in a second. Her outfit was perfectly picked out and every color and piece complimented the others. She had to be Harmonia.

"I wanted to tell you that the only reason that I let you use my apartment is because you three have been working in, for lack of a better work, harmony." Hazel snickered and she tried to cover it with a cough but the goddess noticed and glared at her. "Plus I've always hated Circe's 'I can do anything I want' attitude, but I also felt the need to tell you that you're working on a deadline."

"Let me guess," Nico said, annoyed, "the winter solstice on the 22nd? Why is it always a solstice?" he mumbled to himself.

"Precisely. Circe wants to make her first appearance at Olympus then."

I looked at my watch, which told the date and was immediately overwhelmed. "That's only four days away! We have to fight 2 of Circe's sons and Circe herself in four days? We don't even know where she is!" I looked at Harmonia, expecting an explanation or some guidance, but she only shrugged indifferently at me.

"You'll figure it out. Got to go; I'm late to a party. Bye!"

A bright, yellow light began emitting from the goddess herself. I instinctively looked away as she got brighter and brighter. A few seconds later, the light was gone. I looked up and Harmonia was nowhere to be seen.

"What was that?" I asked.

Hazel answered by saying "she turned into her true godly form. Don't ever look at that." I nodded and we all sat in silence for a moment before Nico stood up.

"Well we don't have that much time, so let's get ready and leave."

In the next hour, we all quickly showered, changed into new clothes, and ate a quick breakfast. When we walked outside, it was nine o'clock and we all felt a little better after resting.

We walked down the street and tried to think of the best way to get to the top of the mountain. I insisted on shadow travel but Nico shot me down by saying "most definitely not." I argued with him for a few minutes but stopped when he gave me a look that could easily kill a child of Hades.

"Any one of these bike rental shops will take us to the top of the Creeper Trail and we can start there," Hazel decided for the group.

We couldn't think of a better solution so we stepped into the nearest shop and rented bikes that with the little money we had and it came with a free ride up the mountain. We sat and waited for nine-thirty which came quickly. Since it was the offseason and in the middle of a workday, we were the only ones loaded onto the bus. The driver tried to small talk with us and Hazel tolerated it for a while but by the end of the forty-five-minute journey, we were all silent.

At the top, the driver unloaded our bikes and wished us luck before driving off again. I mounted the bike easily but Hazel and Nico looked a little uncomfortable.

"What? You guys never learn how to ride a bike?" I asked, smirking a little.

"Of course I did!" Nico exclaimed while Hazel said "yes."

"Well I wouldn't be surprised if you guys couldn't ride well. You're like eighty and you're supposed to be dead."

Hazel laughed and Nico looked away, still uncomfortable.

"It's okay," I reassured. "Once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget, right?"

It turns out that riding a bike _can_ be forgotten and Hazel and Nico had both forgotten. After a few minutes of stumbling and a fall or two, the three of us were on our way down the Appalachian Mountains. For a while, we just rode, with the winter air stinging our faces and keeping a look out for anything suspicious.

It only took us a few minutes of riding down the trail to find something. Beside the trail was a creek and across the water was a single earth monster like Hazel had described earlier. It was just standing there and as we rode by, its coal black eyes followed us.

"Should we do something about it?" I asked, concerned.

Hazel thought hard for a minute. "Let's leave him be and keep going."

As we continued riding, more and more monsters stood across the creek but none of them attacked. Eventually, they were all shoulder to shoulder, creating a line that was facing and staring at us. When I was really starting to worry, I saw that the line suddenly stopped. I brought my bike to a halt to investigate.

"Look," I said to my siblings as I slowed my bike down. I examined the monsters closer and noticed something. "They stop right beside of an opening."

The two looked closely and confirmed my findings.

"Hazel, can you take care of them?" Nico asked.

She nodded and I saw a look harden in her eyes. A second later, the earthen creatures, broke apart like all the moisture had been sucked out of them. Every single monster was now dust and we looked at each other, all unsure of what to do but not having a better plan. We placed our bikes on the side of the old train tracks-turned biking path and skipped across the rocks to get to the trail. We looked around to see if there were any more threats, but we found none.

"I don't like this," Nico said.

"Me either," I responded, "but it's the only hint we have right now."

Hazel unsheathed her spatha and said "everyone, keep your eyes open." We nodded and brought out our own weapons.

We walked down the trail farther and farther into the woods, all the while keeping our footfalls light. For the next few minutes, no monsters or magical men jumped from the bushes to attack us. I was about to note how suspicious this was when we saw a meadow at the end of the path.

We walked up and stopped in front of the tall grass that blew in the wind. The sun shone through the few clouds and lit up the field to make it look beautiful. I didn't marvel at the picturesque view for long though.

"What do we do?" I asked Hazel since this was the area she had dreamed about.

"Well I saw this meadow but Latinus was here. Something's off."

As Hazel stared off in the distance, thinking, I looked around at the nature, appreciating how pretty everything was in this part of the country. It was a nice change from all of the concrete and steel of the cities.

While I looked at a particularly interesting flower, I felt my arms being pinned to my side. Before I had time to react, I shot up into the air while screaming and was suspended ten feet above the ground with my arms completely restrained.

"Laura!" Hazel shouted.

I looked up and saw that I was being held by vines that tightly wrapped around my body. I looked at my siblings, not knowing what was going on and then I saw a group of vines descending towards Nico. I screamed "watch out", but they wrapped around his hands and waist faster than I could call out and lifted him into the air. Hazel looked around wildly, watching for more plant life but none came for her. Instead, a man walked out from the dark shade. He had been concealed by a cluster of bushes but when he left them, the shrubbery receded back into the ground.

I assumed this was Latinus. He had blonde hair that had been buzzcut and he looked completely uncaring, like he wished he could be literally anywhere else at that moment. Hazel held out her spathe, ready to attack, but he simply walked past her and into the meadow. We all looked at each other, wondering what his deal was. Latinus turned around lazily and looked at Hazel.

"So, are we going to fight now or what?"

"Uh… or you could let us go," Hazel said. I'm sure that if she had the power of charm speak, we would have been able to leave right then and there, but unfortunately, she didn't.

"Sorry, but my mom said I have to kill you."

He didn't say anything else, but instead took a Ziploc bag out of his coat pocket and opened it. Inside were dried leaves, which he then took and rubbed onto the sword he unsheathed. Nothing seemed to happen, but he looked satisfied nonetheless. Hazel took a deep breath and winked at Nico while she walked towards Latinus. When she was within ten feet of him, she raised her sword and they locked eyes, waiting for someone to act. Since Latinus didn't care about the fight, my sister had to strike first. She ran up and swung her spatha. He dodged it easily and struck back but Hazel rolled out of the way. They were fairly equal in sword fighting, which Hazel didn't like, so whenever she had a chance, she'd move the earth around and distract him. He would recover quickly though and would get back into his rhythm.

It took me a few moments, but I eventually noticed Nico wiggling around in his vines, trying to grab his sword, but it was just out of reach. He was being thoroughly obvious about his escape attempt and I yell-whispered at him to stop, worried that Latinus would notice.

"It's fine," he said quietly. "Hazel's controlling the mist so he sees that we're still hanging here. But I can't reach my sword. Get yours out."

I nodded and held my hand opened, willing my sword to appear and it listened. Because my hands and arms were restricted, it took me a minute to hack away at the greenery but when I finally broke free, I fell to the ground ungracefully. I was slightly dizzy from the blood that had been rushing to my head but I recovered quickly. My next priority was getting Nico down but he was up way too high for me to reach.

"What now?" I asked. "I can throw my sword at the vines."

"No thank you," he replied. Nico thought for a moment and then came up with a solution. He began to concentrate and a second later, two skeletons in army uniforms escaped from the Earth. "Have them lift you up."

I nodded and looked at the skeletons. They seemed to understand what we wanted so I climbed on one's back and then that one climbed on the second undead's back. At the end of it, we looked like a terrifying competitor for a game of Chicken. When we were at full height, I took my sword and easily slashed Nico's vines, but I didn't think about the fact that he'd plummet to the ground as I did. Oh well.

A few moments later, we were standing at the edge of the battle field, trying to figure out a way to help Hazel. We ruled out summoning the dead and shadow travelling in case they took more energy.

As I stared at the fighting, I noticed that the plant life seemed to be moving. It's like they were alive and trying to mess Hazel up, but she didn't notice.

"Herbs" I said out loud, "his specialty is herbs."

"I think it's all plants" Nico corrected.

As soon as he spoke, we watched as a stray bunch of weeds formed and wrapped around Hazel's ankle. She fell to the ground and her sword fell away from her. Because of her fall, Hazel's control over the Mist faded and Latinus was looking directly at us. He looked deathly serious and my eyes turned to dinner plates as our enemy began walking directly towards us. I summoned my sword but still didn't feel ready to fight him, so I tried to come up with an alternative plan. As I was thinking, Latinus pointed his finger at Nico, who was a few feet away and then brambles began forming around him. He exclaimed in shock and tried to hack away at them but a moment later, Nico was enveloped in a dome of spiky plants. I looked at Latinus and he raised his hand to do the same to me but Hazel had managed to cut herself free from the weeds and struck his arm with her sword, causing a deep gash. Circe's son recoiled and focused back on Hazel and his fight, leaving me not knowing what to do. Hazel seemed to be holding her own with a new gleam of anger and determination in her eyes. I decided that Nico would be more help to her so I began putting all of my efforts into getting him out.

I ran over and inspected the dome.

"Laura!" Nico yelled.

"Yeah, I'm here!" It was a little hard to hear through the density of the plants, making me think that they were thicker than I had believed.

"I can't shadow travel because there's too much light and I can't cut them with my sword. You have to think of something else before Hazel gets creamed by what's-his-face."

I looked over and I could see Hazel start slowing down. Latinus was an immortal being and there was no way she could fight as long as he could. I needed to hurry and save her. I paced and tried to think of a way to get Nico out. I took a deep breath and calmed my thoughts. I could summon a few bones, shadow travel, and when I got upset, it got cold. That's when it hit me. I needed to make myself as mad as possible.

I walked over and placed my hand on the dome of brambles, managing to prick myself in some places, and closed my eyes to fully concentrate. I began thinking about my life and how many unfair hands I had been dealt. My first foster family abandoned when I needed them the most, I had to go from home to home, each being worse than the last, and my current foster family had outright made me sleep in the garage while they treated their own children like royalty. I was mad, but I knew it wouldn't be enough to save Nico, so I went as deep as I could.

I remembered the night the police had come and told me my mother was dead. Though he had been extremely kind and understanding, I was absolutely crushed. The man who murdered my mom was a serial killer who was on the rise at the time. After my mom, he disappeared and the police couldn't find him. He had taken my mom from me, a _child_ , because she had been an easy target walking to her car after work. It was unfair and cruel and he had never been punished for his crimes.

I opened my eyes, which were threatening to burst with tears, and saw that my plan had worked. Ice had formed and expanded enough to cover half of the dome, so I started chipping away at the frozen brambles. I took the hilt of my sword and put all of my frustrations into every swung, and with the help of Nico from the other side, we made quick work of the frozen prison. I steadied myself and took one more good whack at the brambles. The ice shattered and a hole big enough for Nico to get out was formed. I placed my hands on my knees to try and catch my breath while my brother ran immediately to Hazel's aid. I took a second to calm myself and then looked at the fight, ready to help in whatever way I could.

I saw my siblings simultaneously fighting Latinus but he was still holding his own, tripping the two with his plant life when he could and defending himself with things like cacti and holly. Nico coming to the rescue was a help to Hazel but I could tell she was still tiring out. Sword fighting wasn't working. There had to be another way.

I tapped into my powers and noticed a few dead things around the field like a deer and squirrel. I reached out and summoned a rib bone from the deer and it came rushing towards me. I grabbed it when it was closed enough and summoned my sword into my other hand. I began quickly sharpening the bone with my sword until it was more like a knife than a rib. I gripped it hard and took a deep breath, relaxing myself. My target was about twenty feet away, fighting with Hazel and Nico.

As I was about to throw my weapon, I noticed dirt men like the ones from earlier forming around us. There were about thirty of them and they were closing in. I knew that if they had they can to Litinus' rescue, we'd be outnumbered and who knows what would happen after that. I had one shot and I had to make it count for something.

I threw my bone, and aimed for Circe's son. I used my powers to make it obey my course; right in Latinus' neck. I waited in anticipation as I watched the shiv practically fly through the air, and finally hit its target. He roared with agony and he tried to remove the deer bone imbedded in his neck but my sister was quicker. She took that moment to open up a pit right under Latinus that led to gods know where. It was quick and simple and once he was fully underground, she closed the ground. We couldn't hear his screams anymore. I knew that he wasn't coming back. As soon as Latinus was defeated, the dirt men crumbled into nothing and we were left standing in silence in a beautiful meadow, catching our breath.

I fell onto by back in the grass and stared up at the clear sky. Nico and Hazel followed suit and we were all lying in the field recovering from the fight. We stayed like that for a good ten minutes, but I knew we didn't have time to waste. I rolled over and looked at my half-siblings.

"Are you guys okay?" I knew Hazel was likely to be the most tired but Nico did a lot too. I was worried about them.

"I'm fine" Nico replied. We turned to our sister. She had scraped and bruises but she waved us off.

"I don't get tired like you guys do." She winked at Nico and I and flipped her hair sassily. "It must be Pluto's superior genes."

I rolled my eyes and rolled back over. "That doesn't even make any sense" I laughed.

The three of us ended up laughing as we rested in the field and ate small squares of ambrosia. We were all so tired and relaxed that we all ended up dozing in the sun. It was warm that day for December, so it wasn't too cold. Even though I hadn't done much in the fight, I was tired and fell into a deeper sleep, relishing the calmness.

It was cloudy and the wind was strong. An abandoned farm house stood to my left with a sign next to it. I walked over and read it. "Bell Witch Cave" with an arrow was carved into the sign. My eyes followed the arrow and saw the entrance to the cave. I audibly gasped when I saw who was standing there: Telegonus, Circe's third son, and the one who had been plaguing my dreams. My legs shook when I remember the excruciating pain he caused me. A sadistic smile crossed his face.

"I'll be waiting."

I awoke with a start, gulping in a breath of fresh air. Hazel rolled over and yawned.

"You okay?" she asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

"I know where we have to go next" I said simply because I didn't want to talk about it. I stood and grabbed my bag, knowing the other two would follow me. They jogged to catch up and I knew they were concerned but all I wanted to do was get down the mountain. I was going to grab my bike but Nico stopped me.

"We can just shadow travel back down. It'd be faster and I can do it."

"Yeah thanks," I replied.

"But we're not going anywhere until you tell us where we're headed" Hazel interjected.

I sighed but knew I had to tell them. "All I know is that it's called 'Bell Witch Cave.' Telegonus is there and he's waiting for us. But I don't know _exactly_ where it is."

"We can go to the library" Hazel suggested while looking at us for approval. Nico and I looked at each other and shrugged an agreement.

"Sounds like a plan" I said.

The three of us picked up our bikes and then held hands, waiting for Nico to shadow travel us back down to Damascus. A moment later, we plunged into the black and came back up by the bike rental shop. We returned our bikes, asked where their library was, and once we were pointed in the right direction, we were on our way.

After short ten-minute walk and a few sandwiches, we felt slightly more refreshed and ready to find the location for the last of Circe's sons. As we walked in, a kind old man greeted us and introduced himself as the librarian and we told him our names in return.

"Would you happen to know anything about the Bell Witch Cave?" I asked, knowing that it was a long shot.

He thought for a minute, the old gears taking a second to start turning, and then his face lit up with recognition. "Oh, yes! I actually grew up around there. Spooky stuff, I tell ya. Wouldn't go down there if you paid me. Do you kids know the story of the Bell's witch, Kate?"

"No," Hazel said, buttering him up, "please tell us."

He blushed slightly, I'm sure from getting so much attention. "Well John Bell and his family moved to Adams, Tennessee in 1817 but they soon began seeing strange looking animals on their property. Soon afterwards, the sounds of rats gnawing on bedposts, chains being dragged, and choking sounds could be heard at night in the house. They kept it to themselves for a while but confided in their neighbors and once they saw the strange things happening, they formed a committee to investigate. After that, people came from all over too see the house and assumed the whispering noises that had begun were from Kate Batts, a neighbor that had passed. Her main goal was to kill John Bell and break up his daughter's engagement. In 1820, John Bell died, supposedly from poison, which Kate took full credit for and then the daughter broke off her engagement. Her mission was complete so she left for seven years and came back to speak to John Bell Jr. about the past, present, and future. She promised to return in one hundred and seven years, but many believe that she never left the area."

I hadn't noticed, but I had been getting closer and more intertwined in the librarian's story and it both terrified and fascinated me. I looked at the others and saw that Hazel looked as interested as I did but I noticed Nico rolling his eyes.

"Are y'all thinking about going out there?" he questioned, looking extremely worried.

"Yeah, we're going on a family vacation" Nico said in a sarcastic tone that the older man didn't pick up on.

"Well you be careful out there. There's some unnatural stuff in that neck of the woods."

"We will, sir" Hazel smiled as we walked back out of the library.

I looked at my siblings once we were fully outside. "Should we go ahead and go? There isn't anything left to do here."

Nico shook his head. "I dint think that's a good idea. It's almost night and I think Telegonus may be more powerful at night."

"But we only have a few days left to beat Circe" I protested.

"Do we even know where she is?" Hazel asked.

Until then, I don't think any of us had thought about it since we were so caught up in fighting her sons, but the truth was that we had no idea where Circe was hiding. She could be practically anywhere in the world and we didn't have a clue as to where she could be.

"Why don't we get a pizza, go back to Harmonia's, and figure it out?" Nico suggested.

"Can we go back there?" I asked. "I mean we already left. Would she like it if we just waltzed back in?"

He shrugged. "Well she did say we could use it as long as we were here."

I looked at Hazel and we concluded that it was the best option we could come up with, so we started walking in the direction of the apartment.

After half an hour of throwing around ideas of Circe's whereabouts, we still had no clue where she was. We walked into the apartment, which was unlocked, and laid our bags down. We placed the five-dollar pizza we had gotten on the way on the kitchen counter and huddled around it, grabbing slices.

"How do we know if she's even in the U.S.?" Hazel threw out.

I thought about it for a moment but then figured that couldn't be the case. "I mean why would Hecate give you a quest that was on the other side of the world to do in like a week? I think she's here somewhere."

"Could we get it out of Telegonus?" Nico asked.

"Would he even tell us where she is?"

I added "probably not" and we all stood in silence, thinking of a solution, and then it hit me. "Guys, Telegonus has a mirror that he talks to his mom in. Maybe we can see where she is from that."

Hazel and Nico looked at each other, considering what I had said. I knew it wasn't the _best_ plan, but it was better than anything we had come up with.

Hazel shrugged. "I mean, what else do we have?"

"Sounds like a plan then" I said.

Nico walked over and looked out of the window. "It's getting late. Let's think of strategies for tomorrow, get some rest, and head out at dawn."

"Why can't we leave tonight?" Hazel asked.

"I just have a feeling he may be more powerful at night."

"As long as we leave as early as possible, I think it'll be fine" I inputted.

She agreed and we sat down on the couch with our pizza. As soon as the food was gone and we had made a game plan for the next day, we showered, and claimed our sleeping arrangements. As I tossed and turned on the couch, anxiety built up in my chest about the next day. Each of us had our own equivalent to Circe's sons and my fight was tomorrow. I kept repeating the strategy over and over again in my head, but it didn't help. It was only after I prayed to my dad that I was able to fall asleep.

Hazel woke Nico and I up at six the next morning. We ate granola bars as we walked out the door of Harmonia's apartment and looked for a dark enough shadow for me to transport us in. Because it was so early, finding one was easy.

"So…" I started, "to Adams, Tennessee?"

Hazel and Nico took my hands in theirs as indication that we were ready. My heart pounded but I closed my eyes and steadied my breath to ensure there were no complications. I took one last moment to prepare and then pulled us in. The shadows enveloped us, cold seeping into my bones, and the last thing I heard before we came up was the terrified screams of a man. Then, we were standing by the abandoned farm house I saw in my dream, but on the opposite side from the cave as to not be seen by Telegonus.

q

 **Have nico and hazel go in and shes standing there, repeating the plan to reader. Maybe something like they were to give her a signal and they never did so she goes in. N and H are fucked so she as to save them. Cant use sword because he controls her with it. at the end, she shadow travels and leaves him in there.**


End file.
